Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2006-08-10 08:09
Hmm.
The keys may well be nickel silver - I prefer to call it cupro-nickel - but I don't think we have really ascertained that they are not silver plated.
Polishes formulated specifically fro silver don't polish cupronickel well at all, and a silver polish has been found to be successful. Therefore I suspect that the cupronickel is actually silver plated. If so, then I suggest that Brasso, designed for brass and also successful for cupronickel, is really too abrasive to use regularly on silver.
If silver is tarnishing quite readily, then I would take a look at what is in its environment that is doing this. Probably sulphur in some forum. Perhaps lots of garlic, onions or egg in the diet of the player, coming out in the perspiration as sulphur compounds. Perhaps sulphur from the atmosphere - products of combustion (vehicle exhaust, factory pollution, or smoking) geothermal activity, cooking onions, a lot of wool, rubber, an old hard rubber mouthpiece, flatus, etc. 3M Company's Anti-tarnish Strips may help, but are only preventive, and only active while the instrument is inside the case. Other possible causes of silver tarnish are salt air and chlorine fumes.
More information at http://www.silversmithing.com/care.htm
BTW, Ben, if a cork grease causes tarnish, then I suggest it is time to upgrade your standard of cork grease, to Alisyn, or either product from Doctors Products.
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