Cleaning Silver - Plasma Cleaning legit?

@V. Kurt Bellman is the King Of Dip!

 

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Thinking atom realigned would change color or shine

 

Depends on how many are realigned...remember, atoms are itty bitty teensie weensie little things (not to get too technical).

 

So, could one say atoms are teeny tiny also? That is really small.

 

I remember a Rockit Brewster comic strip where Brewster is saying something like "You mean atoms are even smaller than teeny tiny rocks?"

 

Because they are metallic bond, rather than covalent or ionic, they would maintain the color of the original metal. The same for the 'shine' if you are referring to reflection of the wavelengths of light that gives them that visual color. If you are talking about 'toning' or patina of say silver, that is created by interaction of other nonmetallic atoms to form compounds that can have different colors. The above process is to eliminate those atoms from the metal.

 

Producing a stream of ionized hydrogen (with a nitrogen carrier) would require two gas tanks, some gas plumbing, some high-voltage electronics, and some safety arrangements. I could tinker something together off what I have on hand (if I forgo the nitrogen and generate the hydrogen chemically), but what I have on hand is kind of... odd, at least by normal standards. (Hmm... I could lean-burn the hydrogen, condense out the steam, and that would leave me with a hydrogen/nitrogen/argon mix...)

To do this professionally, I'd think it would be a five-figure investment, not six-figure, unless you want to count building lab space, fire-suppression equipment, safety inspections, and whatnot. (I said "four-figure" at first, but I forgot that professional budgets are different. Maybe low five figures.)

 

Go out to the sandbox and make some drawings in the sand.
Then spray it with a garden hose. The drawings are gone.
Removing the water (letting it dry out) will not result in the drawings coming back.

In other words, once the original structure is disturbed, there is no way to get it back short of remanufacturing the whole structure.

 

I'll grant your main point, but I think "spraying sand with a garden hose" is more like "gouging a coin with a knife".

There are plenty of coins that have been "successfully" dipped. The open question is whether this plasma technique is any better than the current best wet-dip techniques.

 

Please post you formula one more time. Is baking soda enough to neutralize it? Additionally, AFAIK TPGS claim to grade with their naked eye or 7X max. I'll bet some us 10X and don't tell. LOL.

 

35 grams (more than it sounds) powdered Thiourea.
35 grams (also) powdered Citric Acid.
If all you have is a simple pan scale, 7 nickels go on the other pan. (35 g.)
Water to make a liter.

Use AT MOST at full strength, but consider farther dilution.

Not ONLY is baking soda a good neutralizer, but once the solution has sulfides in it from use, an excess of baking soda will raise the pH enough to actually REVERSE THE PROCESS to one that ADDS toning to silver. And it looks just like the blotchy brown toning in sickly overpriced Heritage and S/B coins, too. If morons with more "dollars than sense" want to pay for that crap, that's their decision. I don't.

 

So, can you just pee in a cup and squeeze lemon juice into it?

 

No man, with all the drugs I take, if I pee on a coin, it may explode.

 

That's not a closed system either.

 

If the sandbox was in a sealed and insulated ship far out in space, the same thing would apply, and it would be a "closed" system.

But here is yet another explanation:

When metal oxidizes, the metal moves. Think of rust bubbles under the paint of an old car. The volume of the bubble has increased because the oxide increases in volume and gaps form between the metal. The bonds between adjacent molecules in the metal have been broken across these gaps. You can chemically reverse the oxidation process to return the metal to un-oxidized iron. But doing so does not restore the bonds between the molecules where the gaps were. Once pushed out of place, the molecules will not go back and bond where they were before.

 

Exactly my thoughts. Especially on a metal that has been compacted(hardened) by pressure of the strike, not to mention alloy arrangement.

 

Well-stated.

My impression of chemical dipping, though, is that it doesn't stop at removing sulfur (and dislodging the silver that's already reacted with sulfur). Everybody says "don't leave the coin in the dip too long, or you'll ruin it"; if the dip only attacked silver sulfide, that wouldn't be an issue. Instead, as I understand it, the dip will slowly attack the coin's intact surface.

With this plasma technique, I'm not sure that that could happen. It's possible that this technique lets you remove sulfur completely, with no risk to intact metal. That alone could be big. It won't rescue coins that are too deeply corroded/tarnished/toned, but it shouldn't endanger coins that are salvageable.

And, of course, if your coin has a retained textile strike-through, this is perfect for it...

 

Liquid dip does not always remove fiber or sawdust strike-throughs. A stream of anything moving across the surface may. A local jewelry supply tried to see me a steam-jet cleaner for metal. Anyone here ever try one?

 

Except that bonding of metal atoms is not the covalent/ionic model of nonmetallic, it is different in that there are not molecules, but positive charged metal nuclei in a sea of delocalized ( not attached to one specific nuclei) electrons. This accounts for their malleability , and conduction abilities beyond non-metals that are bonded by the normal ionic or covalent bonds.