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.
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