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RE: R-13 tarnished bell ring

Author: L. Omar Henderson
Date: 2001-09-28 03:32

Spend a few hours away at the Atlanta Clarinet Association meeting and all sorts of good chemical fodder comes along!

About some of the earlier posts about using ammonia to treat wood - bend it, transform the darkness or hue - yes, I did my time in the restoration workshop earning a few bucks for school. Antique wood furniture and clarinets are apples and oranges. There are several forms of oxidation and hydrolysis of plant derived lipids (oils) and among the most common are acid and alkaline hydrolysis of the bonds (chemical energy holding molecules together) of lipid fatty acid side chains. Ammonia is a very strong hydrolysis agent and IMHO should not be used on clarinet wood. On antique wood surfaces you are not concerned (other than gross wood decomposition) about the hydrolysis of oils in the wood because your final task is to seal the wood and develop a durable coating on the surface.

The whole deal about tarnish is very complicated with the many urban air pollution compounds that we have surrounding us all the time. I like the earlier analogy of the glacial effect - same end product by the speed in development is powerfully slow. Sulphur compounds and sulphur containing volatile organic compounds are the prime visible culprits but other compounds that are gasoline and desel engine combustion by-products, sister and daughter (sorry women this is how we refer to them) interaction products, etc. also interact with the highly reactive electrochemistry of silver and nickel. Brenda - you probably missed an old post of mine about my own mouthpiece holder (it drew some interesting comments about my AR demenor) - but once again -- I have a padded (all natural cotton batting) silk mouthpiece bag with an impermeable membrane to stop outgasing of rubber vulcanizing agents or influx of air pollutants with a double fold over velcro closure. Inside the bag are compartments for dessicant (to keep RH low and inhibit mold and mildew growth - you make it airtight and it becomes and incubator) and a packet of the experimental pollution grabber formulation which removes classes of volatile organic sulphur containing and other tarnish promoting compounds) -- talk about overkill !!

So anyway, I have done quite a bit of homework on silver polishing cloths (some posts back) but I guess that I can not convince people to go with the well established companies that make cloths for fine silverware that have centuries old reputations. You really need to know that the cloth that you use is not abrading the plating - scratches that are almost invisible to the naked eye from some cloths can seriously remove alot of plating if used often. The best advice is to stop the tarnish before you have to remove it - tarnish is a silver or nickel compound and when you remove it your are removing silver or nickel that was part of the plating! My advice - YMMV and IMHO - is to wipe down the clarinet after use with a soft cloth (I use silk-high denier polyester or microfiber are probably fine too), put it in your case which contains a sacrificial source (the silver storage bags have colloidal silver impregnated into the cloth or a pure mossy nickel bar - tarnish compounds attack it as they would your plating), a 3M current tarnish strip, keep it sealed unless you are actually playing, and tarnish should be rare. I have some other tricks but they would draw too much laughter from the real world!
The Doctor

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R-13 tarnished bell ring new

Brenda Siewert

2001-09-25 19:12