Polishing Silver with Aluminum Foil and Washing Soda

A. The reason that the process isn't working for some posters is because you need to use sodium carbonate (washing soda ⇦ this on eBay or Amazon [affil links] ), instead of sodium bicarbonate (baking soda). Washing soda has a slightly different chemical makeup that will react better with the aluminum to remove the sulfur tarnish and re-deposit the silver ions back onto the silver item. Also, make sure the silver item touches the aluminum somewhere to complete the electrolytic circuit.

A. FYI ... You can make washing soda out of baking soda [in bulk on eBay or Amazon [affil links] with your oven and a cookie sheet. Look it up for instructions.

Silver Cleaning Plates

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A. I love this question!

The usual tarnish on silver is the black sulfide. The cool thing about this is that you can instantly remove the tarnish from any silver item with commonly available household items, and I do mean fast!

Aluminum is far above silver in the activity series for metals, and in a suitable solution will reduce the silver in the silver sulfide, reforming silver metal. The reaction is spontaneous and rapid in warm water:

2Al(s) + 3Ag₂S(s) + 6H₂O -> 6Ag(s) + 2Al₂(OH)₃(s) + 3H₂S(aq)

So, all you have to do is get a container big enough for the silver item, partially fill it with warm water and a couple tablespoons of sodium bicarbonate, a.k.a. baking soda [in bulk on eBay or Amazon [affil links] , place some clean aluminum foil in the container and then just dunk the tarnished item in the bucket. The silver item has to touch the aluminum. It works in a few seconds, no scratches, no muss, no fuss, and then all you you do is rinse the item off. There is no adverse environmental impact, none of the ingredients are in any way toxic (they are food grade!), there is no abrasion or scratching of the silver and you can use your bare hands to remove the treated items from the solution. Just rinse and dry the silver when you are done, & pour the "used" solution down the drain! Re-use or recycle the aluminum foil.

A big old aluminum cooking pot works well as long as you use some 00 steel wool ⇦ this on eBay or Amazon [affil links] on it first to remove the native aluminum oxide. This "treatment" works on silver plate, jewelry, any tarnished silver. Try it friends! Better living through chemistry!

A. Besides the Al treatment mentioned the other formulations are approx. 50 g/l of Thiourea ⇦ this on eBay or Amazon [affil links] in about 1-2% acid - sulfuric, phosphoric, sulfamic. Avoid contact with stainless steel as this will be stained or attacked

A. ... or if you want a commercial product, H.J.Hagerty & Sons sells ⇦ this on eBay or Amazon [affil links] . Same folks who make the polish. But it would have to be near black for me to use it. You will have to polish after treatment.

A. Found Hagerty ⇦ this on eBay or Amazon [affil links] . Works great (about the same as "Quick Dip" silver cleaner). I also found a product called Tarnco at Walmart in Calgary that works very effectively. Needless to say, after not having anything for sometime, I now have two sources.

I tried Dale Woika's suggestion about using the baking soda and warm water....the only visible result was a bunch of baking soda saturated with water...it did NOT work for me!

Washing Soda

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I tried the sodium bicarbonate, water and aluminum foil. It did not work. What am I doing wrong?

I too tried the aluminum, baking soda and water effect with grand results; what I did was boil the water, and the coins came out "clean as a whistle".

A. Silver:

As with gold, wash and clean in warm soapy water and dry off. Further cleaning may not be necessary, however, most detecting finds will. To clean further you need a small plastic container, lunch box style will be fine. Cover the bottom of the container with kitchen foil and put in half a teaspoon of washing soda ⇦ this on eBay or Amazon [affil links] . Place the artifact or coin on top of the kitchen foil, cover with boiling water and leave to cool. Remove the item and clean again in warm soapy water with a soft toothbrush. For a final polish, dip artifacts in silver dip for 1 minute, wash in warm soapy water and dry off. Polish with a soft cloth. DO NOT dip silver coins in silver dip, or polish them.

Another way to clean silver artifacts and hammered coins is with a car battery charger ⇦ this on eBay or Amazon [affil links] . Put a teaspoon of washing soda ⇦ this on eBay or Amazon [affil links] in a small plastic container and fill with about an inch of boiling water. Put a stainless steel spoon in the red positive clip, and immerse it in the solution. Put the item to be cleaned into the black negative clip, and immerse it in the solution, about an inch and a half away from the spoon. Switch the battery charger on and watch it bubble around the item, lifting the contamination off the silver. If you slide the item you are cleaning closer to the spoon you will notice an increase in activity in the cleaning process. If you move the item away you will see a decrease. It is important to know and use this when cleaning very delicate items.

You only need to leave items being cleaned in the solution for 2 minutes at the most. Switch off the charger and remove the item from the solution. Clean with warm soapy water using a soft toothbrush and dry off. For a final polish, dip artifacts in silver dip for 1 minute, wash in warm soapy water and dry off. Polish with a soft cloth. DO NOT dip silver coins in silver dip, or polish them.

To tone and highlight the type and legend on silver coins, use the same battery charger solution you used to clean the coin with, but, put the stainless steel spoon into the black negative clip, and the coin in the red positive clip. Place both back into the same solution , making sure you can see the coin clearly. Turn the battery charger on, keeping your hand on the switch so that you can turn it off again quickly. Turn the battery charger off as soon as the coin goes black - this will literally take 1 or 2 seconds at most.

Remove the coin and put a small amount of any one of the modern household oven and grill cleaning pastes on your thumb. Gently rub the paste onto one side of the coin, then wash it off and check the coin. Repeat this exercise until you highlight the type and legend, toning down the black deposit, to your own satisfaction. Repeat this then for the other side of the coin.

The Dale Woika tarnished silver cleaning method works great!

My wife had some very tarnished silver (probably 40 - 50 years worth) that she got after her mother passed away. We lined a bucket with foil, heated about 3 to 4 gallons of very hot boiling water and dumped in lots of good old baking soda. It was amazing, we dipped the silver in the mixture and it did a great job of getting most of the tarnish cleaned. We cleaned about 30 pieces.

There were some spots that didn't come off completely and it didn't clean some of the decorative small groves on the silver pieces but we were able to get the bulk cleaned very well.

After each piece was done, there was a baking soda coating/film left on, that was easily cleaned with silver polish. This also cleaned most of the spots and groves and sure made the silver look like new again.

I think the key is 'boiling water and lots of baking soda - we used about two and a half boxes - a few spoon fulls doesn't cut it.

Thanks for the idea - it really works and is environmentally safe.

A. The trick is to use washing soda ⇦ this on eBay or Amazon [affil links] , not baking soda. It works well with the aluminum plate I bought at a boat show a few years ago. Adding foil to the bottom of the glass container, then the plate, then the soda, then boiling hot water works!

A. I was searching the web trying to find a company that sells the metal plate that cleans silver (also used, I'm told, by museums). Someone else had posted a question on the internet site I was looking at asking if anyone knew where to buy one. I had bought one at the Texas State Fair a year ago, but unfortunately had lost it when I moved. I had hoped to buy one on the internet, but since I couldn't find the web site in my search and October 20th was the last day for the Texas State Fair I rushed to the fair and bought another one. For anyone interested in buying one an email address is www.cleaningplate.com.

A. You can do just as well with Aluminium flashing material sold at most building supply companies. It is thin enough to cut with heavy shears or tin snips. I see a lot of the plates in thrift stores.

A. Home-made Silver Dip: Put some hot water in an aluminium pan, some water softener powder and salt. Dissolve the ingredients before dipping silver. Tarnish will dissolve immediately. Dip silver in cool water to rinse off solution when done. No need for polishing.

I do not know the exact proportions of each ingredient, you might have to try a few times before you get it right, but when you do the results are amazing. Will remove tarnish from even the most intricate areas of silver. You can mix as much or little solution as necessary for larger or smaller pieces.

A. Tarn-X tarnish remover ⇦ this on eBay or Amazon [affil links] is the brand of instant, thiourea type, silver tarnish remover that I see everywhere.

A. Almost all chemical reactions occur much faster at higher temperatures because of much higher ion mobility, Caitlin. Further, the only part of the washing soda which does anything is the part that is dissolved, and you can dissolve more at high temperature than at low temperature. Good luck.

My husband and I had seen someone on a talk show cleaning silver with the water softener, aluminum pie plate, salt and hot water. We didn't have everything necessary and soaked the silver in warm water and ammonia. Nothing much happened. Then I found this site. We put aluminum foil in the bottom of the sink. Added salt and then grabbed some dryer sheets. The results were fantastic.

The reason this works for only some people is, hard water, you need to use equal parts Calgon water softener, from any grocery store, and same amount of it as the amount of Baking soda, like, 1/4 cup of each with the warm water.

It works real quick and sweet, only problem is Calgon is in a BIG box and costs like 10 bucks, but well worth it.

The hard minerals block the chemical action, you need soft water.

This is from a professional Jeweler. Good luck.

A. I found a precious metals cleaning plate and activator on skymall.com. Product number is 65593J

I want to thank everyone who has posted here; all the information has been extremely helpful. I'm an American residing in the coastal regions of Central Queensland, Australia. The weather here is quite humid, as I reside at the lower end of the Tropics. Much of my silver jewelry has become tarnished and regular polishes/cleaners available here were not doing the trick. So, I tried the aluminium, bicarbonate soda & boiling water, as suggested on this post, and it worked wonders. I only had to polish a few pieces that had tarnished very badly (large black sports) due to the salt air & humid temperatures. I will definitely be using this cleaning method again, as it is convenient, inexpensive and natural (no chemicals or abrasives involved).

Thank you everyone!

A. Yep, it's getting long and raggedy, but unfortunately it can only be partially summed up, Debbie. Trying to get everyone on the internet to exactly agree is more difficult than herding cats :-)

What can certainly be summarized from general science principles is that the process simply cannot work without the aluminum, and that boiling water is faster & more effective than cooler water. But some readers say warm water is fine, others feel it should be boiling; some readers insist that baking soda works fine while others say the process only works with washing soda ⇦ this on eBay or Amazon [affil links] , and one says you need water softener if your water is hard.

If it did not work at all, the probability is that your silver was not reliably in contact with the aluminum.