Cleaning tarnish off cheaper metals

I have a ring made of cheaper metal (not sure what it is) but I was
cleaning with bleach and it turned a deep purple with tarnish. Is
there any way to clean this off?

On Wed, 23 Jul 2003 18:54:29 -0700, in rec.crafts.jewelry
(GreenMan) wrote:

I wasnt cleaning the RING with bleach. I was WEARING it while
sterolizing wine equipment. Should have been more clear.

So now you know about bleach and jewelry (grin)

by the way, the same warnings go for things containing iodine. Both chlorine
compounds and iodine ones will discolor gold and silver alloys. the iodine just
discolors. chlorine, if left for any length of time, can actually do structure
damage to some of the alloys, nickle white golds in particular.

As to fixing this, it depends a lot on what the rings are actually made of. If
they are solid metal, meaning the surface you see looking at the ring is the
actual metal it's made of, then you can clean it up again without risk. Any of
the paste type silver polish compounds available in the grocery store, which
usually require a bit of physical rubbing, should be enough to brighten up the
surface again. Jewelers supply houses, and other places too, might have some
specific polishing paste products, such as Semichrome polish, which will work
just fine. Try to avoid things with actual cleansers and abrasives of that
sort, since though they'll take off the discoloration, they'll also dull the
finish. Scouring powder, toothpaste, and things like that are the types of
things to avoid. And usually, the "dip" type cleaners for silver tarnish, such
as tarnex brand and others like it, won't work on the discoloration caused by
bleach. They take off sulphide tarnish, the usual blackening that silver
undergoes over time. In your case, you've likely got either chlorides, or
perhaps oxides, on certain metals (chlorine bleach is both a source of choride
ion, which can form chlorides, and it's an oxidizer., so the effect that the
metal undergoes can differ from one metal to another) In both cases, you'll
likely need some physical buffing to take it off. If this is indeed oxides,
instead of chlorides, then some dilute acids may remove them. jewelers call
this "pickling", a process used to remove the oxides formed in soldering
operations. Pickling solutions often are a sulphuric acid salt, sodium
bisulphate, which is also commonly sold to reduce the ph in pools and hot tubs.
Another that may work is citric acid. But as I said, both of these will only
work with oxides. They won't affect chlorides, and even then, the surface will
remain dull, and need some buffing up.

Your main worry in cleaning is if the ring is not a solid metal, but rather, is
electroplated. This would still be a metal ring, but the surface you see, which
is discolored, can be a very thin layer. If this is the case, then you will
need, when you follow the above suggestions, to take a very light touch, so as
not to wear down the plated layer. some plated jewelry has a thick enough layer
that it's quite durable, and will be fine. But some very cheap stuff is gold
plated with such a thin layer that even modest buffing by hand can be enough to
wear through the high spots to whatever is underneath. If this is the case,
however, then at least you can be assured that you don't actually have a lot at
risk. Jewelry like that is usually very very inexpensive.

If the design of the ring is such that you cannot easily reach the surfaces well
enough to polish them yourself, you might need to ask a jeweler to do it. We've
usually got an array of various small buffing tools that work a bit better than
just a polishing cloth, to get into the details. Plus the experience to do the
job well...

Hope that helps.

Peter Rowe

Thanks Peter - nothing left to do but experiment!