In a Pickle.

**Dennis** · 15-06-2010, 09:20 AM

Mainstream jewellers use diluted sulphuric acid in their pickle pots. But if you are a craft person, working from home and you value your clothes and flooring, you will use safety pickle or Sparex, as it is known in the USA. One common alternative is alum, but you need to keep your pot rather hot for it to work. The advantage of alum is that the pickled silver seems to come out out much cleaner and whiter looking . I find the result so attractive, that sometimes I reheat and repickle after polishing, so as to restore that bloom. This will then pick up some highlights when handled.
Here’s a note of caution: some people are so sensitive to safety pickle, that they can feel a tingling in their fingers if they touch a worktop on which traces have been left. I have also had earrings returned because they itched and this cast doubt on the quality of the silver. As a result I now always boil up finished work in water with a tea spoon of soda crystals and then rinse well, so that I’m no longer in a pickle.

**Di Sandland** · 15-06-2010, 11:31 AM

Dennis, I love the 'alum finish' too but have refrained from using it as a final finish cos I'm not sure how durable it is. What's your experience?

**HannahJewelleryDesigns** · 15-06-2010, 12:39 PM

Hi Dennis,
where would I get Alum from and what exactly do you do with it? I am one of those lucky people who is very allergic to pickle- helpful for a jeweller! I got splashed once at Uni and the pickle left a burn hole about the size of a two pence piece on my skin! Not fun!

So an alternative to pickle would be very welcome in my book!
Ta very much

**Di Sandland** · 15-06-2010, 02:34 PM

Not Dennis but I can answer

Alum is quite a common compound and is very safe - so safe in fact that it's an ingredient in many foodstuffs; it can be used to keep watery foods (like cucumber) crisp and it is an ingredient in baking powder. it has other uses too; I have used it as a mordant to fix natural dyes made from garden plants and home brewers do something with it, although I'm not quite sure what!

I got mine from Fibrecrafts - they have good customer service and are a respected company within the fibre arts community. However, you can also get it here and it seems to be much cheaper although, never having used it from here I can't personally recommend them.

hope that helps

**Di Sandland** · 15-06-2010, 02:38 PM

sorry, I forgot the 'what to do with it' bit. I'm not very scientific I'm afraid - I just bung a load in water in the slow cooker (well in a bowl within the slow cooker). Alum needs to be very warm to work - but Dennis already said that. He might be a bit more scientific as to quantities tho ;-)

**caroleallen** · 15-06-2010, 03:24 PM

I use alum too and I'm not very scientific with the quantities either. I get mine from Boots. You have to ask for alum crystals and don't let them say they don't do it as it's not easy to find on their list and they have to order it in. It works better with enamel than safety pickle though you still have to watch some colours as it turns them matt.

**wheely** · 15-06-2010, 04:09 PM

I can't use safety pickle, I itch and came up in blisters last week, which is a bugger as it means I can only solder at work or at my class so someone else can deaal with the pickle pot. I'm always looking for other things I can use - any other suggestions?

**mizgeorge** · 15-06-2010, 05:05 PM

I'm also an alum user. I get it from an online chemist and it's very cheap. It's also useful for removing burrs or drill bits that have snapped off in a piece of precious metal.

Wheely - alum would be the answer for you. Citric acid also works, but needs refreshing more often.

**Dennis** · 15-06-2010, 05:05 PM

It does not matter how much alum you add. It just affects the speed of pickling so, as I am very impatient, I add about a table spoonful to my small slow coker. I would be surprised if you were not much less sensitive to alum compared with safety pickle as in my youth men applied alum sticks to their faces to stem bleeding after shaving. I feel hoist with my own petard, because in another post I talked about selling smoke and mirrors. The beautiful bloom disappears with handling, as it does on plums, and can only be restored by re-pickling. I suspect it tarnishes more quickly too. In mitigation, I have seen this finish on lots of items in jewellery and silversmithing shows.