My mom started decorating the house today and I found this old silver bell my parents have had since before I was born. It's been years since it was polished and I wanted to clean it up a little bit for them. For the hard of seeing it says "Christmas 1985"
The other side.
All you'll need is some baking soda, aluminum foil, water, and the tarnished silver. Let's go!
No real guidelines on quantities. Add baking soda until you feel good.
Then add your bit of aluminum. And turn on your heat. Bring your water to a nice boil.
And finally, add your silver. The reaction only takes a minute or two.
After a quick rinse in warm water and here is the completed bell all nice and shiny like.
The other side looking pretty spiffy too.
Silver tarnish is Silver Sulfide (Ag2S) which undergoes an electrochemical reaction with the aluminum foil to make aluminum Sulfide. The silver was then replated onto the bell. For the curious the chemical equation is 3Ag2S + 2Al --> 6Ag + Al2S3.
LarktheShark
Any chocolate in that silver bell?
littlemorte
Favorite this so I can clean my rings later, thank you
Ragnarok987
This is really awesome.
Mindcrkus
Really cool my birth year!
PotatoThunder
aww :)
AllanSundance
+1 for including the formula !
TheAdventuresofCarltheIncompetentLabAssisstant
I'll be damned if I do a reaction and not know the formula
frizzyhairdontcare
I've always wanted to try this, I have so many silver antiques I have collected over the years
TheAdventuresofCarltheIncompetentLabAssisstant
Very easily scalable. Make sure you change out the aluminum every so often.
frizzyhairdontcare
Perfect! I will post a follow up to let you know how it went!