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Best cleaner/polish for silver plate?

I am working on a pair of 20's silver plate Conn stencil C mels. The silver is very tarnished, but mostly present. What is the best/easiest way to clean then polish vintage silver plate saxed like these?
 
I like to first give silver saxes a bath in a tarnish removing liquid. Tarnex liquid is a good choice available in most grocery stores. Allied supply also sells a good silver dip by the gallon. You don't need to soak the sax in the tarnish remover, just use a shallow container and keep "basting" the sax with the liquid using a small cup. If one does this, it is very important to remove the blued steel springs first as they don't react well to the tarnish removing solvent. Then the sax is rinsed with clean water and blow dried using the blower attachment of a shop vac or a hair dryer.

The second step of the process I use is to secure the body on a tapered wooden mandrel held in a vice covered with a couple of old socks. You can improvise with an old softball bat cut to size if you don't want to buy the tapered mandrel from Allied for about $45. Then I spray the sax with Haggerty's Silver Polish spray one section at a time. When the spray turns to a pink haze, I hand rag the finish using strips of cotton muslin cloth. I like to do the posts first and then the body. Areas that the ragging doesn't reach can be done with your cloth covered finger, or Q-tips.

The keys with the pads removed can be done in the same fashion. The photo below shows a True Tone alto restored in the fashion described.

TrueToneAlto127-1.jpg
 
Thanks! Great instructions!
 
Just thinking out loud, do you think an airbrush spraying tarn-x would do well at getting to tarnish in the detail work and crevaces? There is alot of tarnish on the stencil work.

Capture2-1.jpg


Also thinking of using the airbrush "dry" to blow dry it.
 
If you're using Tarn-X, make sure you use the kind for SILVER PLATE, BTW.

I dunno about the airbrush comment. It might hurt the airbrush, itself.
 
If you're using Tarn-X, make sure you use the kind for SILVER PLATE, BTW.

I dunno about the airbrush comment. It might hurt the airbrush, itself.

The type of airbrush I'd use is external mixing, it shouldn't hurt anything as there are no plated parts or rubber seals.
 
I would be careful not to inhale the mist or fumes created when the Tarnex is sprayed. I believe soaking for a few minutes would be just as effective. On incredibly dirty satin silver instruments I have successfully used the old repairman's trick of making a paste with 1/2 baking soda and 1/2 Barkeeper's Friend and brushing the finish with a stiff bristle brush. This gets the nooks and crannies clean when nothing else will. The only thing better is a brass wire brush wheel rotated at about 500 rpm and soapy water. Prepare to get wet when using this last method, but it produces a beautiful finish.
 
The only thing better is a brass wire brush wheel rotated at about 500 rpm and soapy water. Prepare to get wet when using this last method, but it produces a beautiful finish.
How much metal would you remove with that, though?
 
How much metal would you remove with that, though?

I can't quantify the amount, but I believe it to negligible. Repair techs have used soft brass wire rotating "scratch brushes" for years to clean brass valves which are fit to very precise tolerances.

Some day when I have an old parts saxophone in satin silver I will scratch brush a single area to see how many minutes/hours/days it takes to wear through the silver plate and report back.
 
I put a little Tarnex in a cup and dip a soft toothbrush in it to clean areas a little at a time, rinsing after each section. This method seems to work well, especially around posts and under rolled tone holes.

After the worst of it is cleaned off, I use Haggerty's silversmith polish for the final cleaning and shine. Old shoe strings seem to work well for the tight spaces.
 
Hagerty Silver Polish is the most effective and safe tarnish remover I have used:

http://hagertyusa.com/

I have been very impressed with the MAAS (one syllable) :) line of metal polishing products. For bare brass especially, it shines better than Brasso and is much easier to clean up afterwards. It seems to be less abrasive than Simichrome or Flitz but does as just as good a job, if not better.
 
I concur with the MAAS for nickel and other non silver/gold manual applications.

It's been my favorite for a very long time for general polishing.

brasso (the liquid paste) has an aweful smell if I recall. Use it in well ventilated areas.
 
I have been very impressed with the MAAS (one syllable) :) line of metal polishing products. For bare brass especially, it shines better than Brasso and is much easier to clean up afterwards. It seems to be less abrasive than Simichrome or Flitz but does as just as good a job, if not better.

I'll have to give that a try for my bare brass horns. Cheers.
 
MAAS was the polishing paste used in this writeup about clarinet nickel keywork polishing.
You can see it at work here
http://www.woodwindforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2325&highlight=clarinet+polishing

I continually use MAAS to polish clarinet nickel posts by using ragging techniques.

For keywork I use a variety of machine and buffing wheels but use other polishing agents as the rotational buffers spit paste around too much. But even then so, it does a really good job.
 
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