Cleaning Silver pens

Hi All,
I love my silver pieces, but obviously don't use them all at the same
time.
I store them in an open tray, and they eventually get tarnished to a
point wher they need a good cloth rub to polish.
Any ideas on how to easily clean and maintain silver pens?
How are the liquid dips for pens?
Interested in your thoughts and comments.
Thanks,
Pelikanyo Paul

On Mon, 11 Oct 2004 01:29:20 GMT, "Paul G"
wrote:

Hi All,
I love my silver pieces, but obviously don't use them all at the same
time.
I store them in an open tray, and they eventually get tarnished to a
point wher they need a good cloth rub to polish.
Any ideas on how to easily clean and maintain silver pens?
How are the liquid dips for pens?
Interested in your thoughts and comments.
Thanks,
Pelikanyo Paul


You could use silver polish. If you want to never polish them again
coat them with clear nail polish.

"Paul G" wrote in message
. net...
Hi All,
I love my silver pieces, but obviously don't use them all at the same
time.
I store them in an open tray, and they eventually get tarnished to a
point wher they need a good cloth rub to polish.
Any ideas on how to easily clean and maintain silver pens?
How are the liquid dips for pens?
Interested in your thoughts and comments.
Thanks,
Pelikanyo Paul

I use a cheapy silver polishing cloth. It takes a second,
doesn't leave any kind of mess, and the pen looks great.

M.

On Mon, 11 Oct 2004 01:29:20 GMT, Paul G typed:

Hi All,
I love my silver pieces, but obviously don't use them all at the same
time.
I store them in an open tray, and they eventually get tarnished to a
point wher they need a good cloth rub to polish.
Any ideas on how to easily clean and maintain silver pens?
How are the liquid dips for pens?
Interested in your thoughts and comments.
Thanks,
Pelikanyo Paul

SIMICHROME is a German polish that comes in a tube, and is sold (oddly
enough) mostly in motorcycle shops. It has a micro-abrasive in it that
leaves a high polish, and is simply buffed on, then off. If the silver is
plated (not solid), don't use it too often...
--
Cordially,

Sonam Dasara
10/10/2004 11:43:04 PM
dovekeeper+at+electric-ink+dot+com

Sonam Dasara wrote:

On Mon, 11 Oct 2004 01:29:20 GMT, Paul G typed:

Hi All,
I love my silver pieces, but obviously don't use them all at the same
time.
I store them in an open tray, and they eventually get tarnished to a
point wher they need a good cloth rub to polish.
Any ideas on how to easily clean and maintain silver pens?
How are the liquid dips for pens?
Interested in your thoughts and comments.
Thanks,
Pelikanyo Paul

SIMICHROME is a German polish that comes in a tube, and is sold (oddly
enough) mostly in motorcycle shops.

Not oddly. It is a virtually perfect chrome polish.

On 2004-10-10 18:29:20 -0700, "Paul G" said:

Hi All,
I love my silver pieces, but obviously don't use them all at the same
time.
I store them in an open tray, and they eventually get tarnished to a
point wher they need a good cloth rub to polish.
Any ideas on how to easily clean and maintain silver pens?
How are the liquid dips for pens?
Interested in your thoughts and comments.

There are protective cloth bags, sort of felt-like, made for silverware
- they come in different sizes to accommodate all sorts of items. I
assume the bags are treated with some kind of tarnish preventing
chemicals - it keeps you from having to polish things all the time.

Because liquid dips work chemically, all the tarnished silver is
purified and restored to the pen, but it can get rearranged a bit -
don't use dips constantly on silver that has surface patterns, because
the patterns will eventually lose detail.

Other polishes work physically, by rubbing away the tarnish. This means
some stuff that was formerly silver is now on the cloth, and has been
subtracted from the pen.

So if the pens aren't supposed to be on display, then the protective
bag (look for stores selling silver platters etc.) may be a good idea.
I think the bags are not expensive.

I knew a trumpet player who had the shiniest trumpet all the time (it
was silver plated), because he polished it often. Later, when the
underlying brass started to show through, he was not pleased. :-)

greatly appreciate the input
Thanks everyone!
p-

"Paul G" wrote in message
. net...
Hi All,
I love my silver pieces, but obviously don't use them all at the same
time.
I store them in an open tray, and they eventually get tarnished to a
point wher they need a good cloth rub to polish.
Any ideas on how to easily clean and maintain silver pens?
How are the liquid dips for pens?
Interested in your thoughts and comments.
Thanks,
Pelikanyo Paul

On Mon, 11 Oct 2004 01:29:20 GMT, "Paul G"

Any ideas on how to easily clean and maintain silver pens?

Whatever you do, don't use abrasives. Silver is very soft (even
sterling silver) and you can remove detail in no time. For silver
plate, an abrasive will remove it entirely and lead to brassing (where
the plating wears through to show the base metal beneath). Personally
I wouldn't use a silver plated pen, because I do carry it around and
silver plate isn't up to pocket abrasion, let alone cleaning.

A very hard metal, in contrast, is chromium. So a chrome polish like
Solvol Aurosol or Simichrome will be disastrous if used on silver!

Fortunately true silver tarnish (silver sulphides) is reversible.
There are dip treatments based on thiourea which are easily available
and give very good and non-destructive results. Goddards' is one (in
the UK) but you can usually find them by looking for the hazard
warning on the back about the poisonous thiourea. I'd apply them to a
pen with a soft brush or cotton wool swab, then rinsing afterwards.
They're not safe on steel, stainless steel, chrome plate or nickel
silver. Brass is OK. They're safe on most non-metals, but I'm not sure
about natural rubber.

Don't use a silver dip that claims to rebuild silver plate. It may
well do so, but they don't do anything for silver that's still in good
condition. If you do have any brassing already, they may be
appropriate, but they leave a plating that's really not up to much
handling.

--
Smert' spamionam

"Andy Dingley" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 11 Oct 2004 01:29:20 GMT, "Paul G"

Any ideas on how to easily clean and maintain silver pens?

Whatever you do, don't use abrasives. Silver is very soft (even
sterling silver) and you can remove detail in no time. For silver
plate, an abrasive will remove it entirely and lead to brassing (where
the plating wears through to show the base metal beneath). Personally
I wouldn't use a silver plated pen, because I do carry it around and
silver plate isn't up to pocket abrasion, let alone cleaning.

A very hard metal, in contrast, is chromium. So a chrome polish like
Solvol Aurosol or Simichrome will be disastrous if used on silver!

Fortunately true silver tarnish (silver sulphides) is reversible.
There are dip treatments based on thiourea which are easily available
and give very good and non-destructive results. Goddards' is one (in
the UK) but you can usually find them by looking for the hazard
warning on the back about the poisonous thiourea. I'd apply them to a
pen with a soft brush or cotton wool swab, then rinsing afterwards.
They're not safe on steel, stainless steel, chrome plate or nickel
silver. Brass is OK. They're safe on most non-metals, but I'm not sure
about natural rubber.

Don't use a silver dip that claims to rebuild silver plate. It may
well do so, but they don't do anything for silver that's still in good
condition. If you do have any brassing already, they may be
appropriate, but they leave a plating that's really not up to much
handling.

--
Smert' spamionam

Hi Andy,

This is great advice. Do you have a URL to go with your thiourea based dip?
--
Best regards,
Free Citizen
Fountain Pen Network
A pen site run by the Pen Community
http://pagesperso.laposte.net/fpnet

Try toothpaste - I use it on silver-plate candlesticks, and you can remove
the surplus with a damp cloth.

Regards

Kit Lewis


"Earl Camembert" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 11 Oct 2004 01:29:20 GMT, "Paul G"
wrote:

Hi All,
I love my silver pieces, but obviously don't use them all at the same
time.
I store them in an open tray, and they eventually get tarnished to a
point wher they need a good cloth rub to polish.
Any ideas on how to easily clean and maintain silver pens?
How are the liquid dips for pens?
Interested in your thoughts and comments.
Thanks,
Pelikanyo Paul


You could use silver polish. If you want to never polish them again
coat them with clear nail polish.


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