Polishing Tips – How to polish silver
Enjoy your silver. Use your silver. It is easy to polish silver. Learn about the best silver polish, and about silver polish tips. We should always try to understand the various metals, and take this into consideration, whether the metal is aluminum, stainless steel, and brass, chrome, copper, silver or gold.
Some basic points, which we hope you will do, first are to clean your silver or metal item before you start to polish. The reason is that the dirt can itself cause damage by scratching the surface. Of course you should work in a clean area, and ensure that hazardous items and chemicals are out of the way. Make sure you use clean cloths, as you would not want to scratch or damage your pieces by using soiled cleaning materials. We recommend using cloths without labels and preferably without sewn edges. Microfiber cloths are the best, and should be used whenever possible.
Always use the best silver polish you can find. Silver polish should not contain anhydrous solvents, ammonia or acids. And also, be sure not to use polishes that contain these chemicals, when cleaning and polishing aluminum, Brass, Copper or bronze, as they are caustic to zinc. Brass is zinc and copper. Zinc is normally present in aluminum, and is used to make many steels and alloys less corrosive.
For our chemical majors, tarnish is oxidation. So in the case of silver, a good polish will remove silver oxide using a silver oxide reducing agent. In the case of copper, a cupric oxide reducing agent will remove copper oxide. In case you are wondering, this does NOT mean that silver or copper is removed. Wipease® Silver Polish, Chrome & Copper wipes is a really well put together product and will not harm your item you are cleaning. The cream silver polishes have a drawback in that they have a tendency to get into every nook and cranny, making it a royal pain to clean up afterwards.
Before anything else, read the instructions on your container of silver polish and always follow the manufacturer’s instructions. I love to polish my silver in the kitchen and I spread out soft cotton towels for the clean and polished pieces. We recommend that you Wash or rinse each silver item in warm water to remove dust, and then clean the entire piece with a silver polish wipe. After polishing, buff and dry with a microfiber cloth. If you are going to use the item for eating, you should rinse with water and then buff dry. When buffing, it is often helpful to mist your final buffing with a light misting of water and buff it again, to seal both metals and waxes.
Because it is so important, we remind you always use top quality soft cloths for your final buffing.
You control the amount of pressure that you exert. Use light pressure, especially on polishing strokes.
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