I'm having to sell off some silver ( some plated some sterling ) to make ends meet ( rent is due and I've been out of work for 5 months ). Can I use wipe-a-way cloth to clean it?

Probably not. Lead oxide and silver oxide are two different molecules. But then, an oxide is an oxide. The chemical in the cloth may do the trick after all. Try it on a small spot...

If you try it on any of your silver-plated items, be very careful where you try it. It removes gun blue from guns. It just might remove silver plate from metals too.

Yes, it is abrasive. No chemical dissolves lead.
For the heck of it, try Kaboom on the silver. They also have a dip that will not remove the silver.

quote:

Posted 18 August 2009 22:16 Hide Post
Probably not. Lead oxide and silver oxide are two different molecules. But then, an oxide is an oxide. The chemical in the cloth may do the trick after all. Try it on a small spot...


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My little guy up there is laughing at those of you on my Ignore list.

7000 posts on August 12, 2009 as of 0810, UAE time.

Hey, I see you are homebrewer so I take it you make your own beer. So do I and want to hear more.

quote:

Originally posted by bfrshooter:
Yes, it is abrasive. No chemical dissolves lead.

"Dissolve" may not be the exactly correct term, but there are several things that separate lead from other metals...one of which is hydrochloric acid, either strong or dilute.

For some really interesting information on that subject (but tough reading), try Googling "separating tin and lead", or "purifying lead". That may also suggest why one really doesn't have to worry about significant loss of tin or antimony from alloys because of the moderate heat in home lead pots.

(Excess Tin and Antimony which are in "suspension" in lead alloys can be comparatively easily separated, but not the stuff actually in solution in the alloy.)

quote:

Hey, I see you are homebrewer, so I take it you make your own beer. So do I and want to hear more.

I have not brewed in ten years. The demands of my emplo'ment preclude gettin' back to it, although I sure would like to do so. Am I still a homebrewer after so long a hiatus? I am not a real, full-on guy who malts and mashes his own grain. That's just too much bullobama. I brew from syrup or DME. I use cracked grain in the water before the boil begins to add that extra flavor. I do hop with pellets, so I'm not the complete rube who uses oils or the pre-flavored syrup. I do the primary ferment in a big, 7-gallon plastic bucket for 5-6 days, then transfer to a gorgeous 6-gallon glass carboy for about 10 days, then to a 5-gallon glass carboy for somewhere between 14-21 days. Then I check specific gravity. If it's too high, it gets more time. You can never "overferment," as far as I am concerned. I prime with 3/4-cup corn sugar per 5-gallon batch. A full one-cup of corn sugar tends to overprime, I think.

I hope I have provided the kind of info you want. I also hope I am not deigning to teach a Ph.D. in this stuff, as well. I dabbled, loved it and want to get back to it, but things are much different for me now than they were in 1997-98. I still have all my equipment, my books, my records (I think I do), a shitload of 22-ounce brown bottles-- everything. Just no time...

Not to hijack, just to correct a misconception. It is technically not true that "no chemical dissolves lead". The element mercury will dissolve lead rather handily. If you plug a barrel and fill it with mercury, you will soon have the cleanest barrel possible, (as far as Pb is concerned), and it will not damage the gun in any way. Now the health concerns can be debated, although the truth is that properly handled the risk is minimal. We used to get it in the lab all the time, and used it on our revolvers, no scrubbing, just pour in, let set a bit, pour out and you're done. We once had a college student working with us,and she warned us that we might go crazy using such a cleaning method, but she quickly learned we had nothing to fear, we were already there!

Bobby -

I like your post. I often sit and shake my head when I read/hear of all the mortal peril we face with lead, mercury, etc.

When I was a young kid, we moved from AZ to CA, where I lived in the coast range about 60 miles or so S of San Fran. In those days the California Coastal Range of hills was one of the largest Cinnebar (mercury ore) producing areas in the world. Hard-rock miners were even brought from Cornwall, England. There was a huge mine at Almaden, California (Santa Clara county), and another huge one about 80 or 90 miles away at New Idria (San Benito county). The mines also had refineries which extracted the mercury from the ore.

We kids were taken on tours of both facilities as part of our grammar-school history classes, and at both places had pretty much a palm full of virtually pure liquid mercury poured into one of the hands of each of us. We then dipped pennies into the mercury to see how it combined with the copper of the pennies. Wow! A miracle! We now had coins that looked like "silver".

The ore in both those areas was so rich, you could actually find free mercury on the surfaces of pieces of ore, if you broke the ore into smaller rocks. I don't know all of the uses of mercury in those days, but it was at first mined there mainly to use to create amalgams with gold, as part of the California gold fields' gold-recovery processes.

I know that we kids used to play with pure liquid mercury all the time until we discovered other things, like girls. Of the two, my personal experiences have proved much more dangerous with the girls.

It is true my life may have been shortened by the mercury contact. I mean, Hell, I am only in my middlish-70's now. I probably won't make 80 or at least 85 as my parents whose genes I should have, both died at age 76 (7 years apart). But I am already there, so I'd guess my life hasn't been shortened too awful much.

I would also guess that the power found in telling people what they can and can't do is pretty darned addicting, from all the "control" B.S. I see/hear today.

End of not too loud rant.

Blah, blah, blah.....sell crazy else where. It's a silicone cloth man......................