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Re: Silver vs. Nickel vs. Sweaty fingers ?

Author: Julian ibiza
Date: 2023-05-17 00:35

Hi Mathtieu,

Somehow it doesn't surprise me that you have researched this matter in great depth . Thank you for sharing .

It seems that your sources offer the principal corrosive in sweat as somewhat different to mind , but unless one is going to experiment with changing ones diet ,then this probably isn't worth debating . Personally I'm going to go on eating my eggs ....and with salt . Ha-ha !

I do like the sauna angle and think that it's a great negligence that it's not mentioned on any clarinet maintenance instruction guides I've ever seen.

Is seems that the general consensus is that silver and nickel plating are equally resistant to corrosion with silver perhaps coming out a bit on top . In view of the fact that rather than a quick clean of the keys with a silver cleaning cloth or just cotton rag , I am finding that after a single session I'm getting stubborn black staining on the bass keys, got me thinking about silver's micro-porosity . It just seems like the extra finger pressure required to play the bass is driving sweat into the metal . Nickel is apparently not micro-porous like silver , but I guess it may corrode equally for other reasons .

I think that the question that's really in my mind regarding this matter is ...Is it better to remove this staining although it requires using metal polish which will no doubt take a little of the plating every time ?
Or should I just wipe the keys clean but leaving the dark tarnish ?

I've always assumed that corrosion is something which tends to snowball if left to stand, because the resulting micro-pitting increases the surface area to oxidation and also traps corrosives .

Julian Griffiths
Tel. 34 696 798 853

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