Antique silvering

Roderick Treece · Post by **Roderick Treece** » Mon Jan 24, 2005 3:18 pm

Is there anybody out there that knows anything about doing antique silvering?
I know that it starts with normal silvering process and then you sprinkle on some kind of chemical or possible spray it on and it tarnishes the silver (pitted look).

I have just mirrored my first big project and it was a great success(lots of failures).
I am trying to do the boarder in an antique finish with normal sivering in the middle.At first I was thinking of backing everthing up but the boarder, then striping off the boarder ,then reapplying a lead mirror finish .But if I can just tarnish the boarder I think it will be a better look and easyier.

Roderick

Post by **Danny Baronian** » Mon Jan 24, 2005 3:50 pm

Take some of your mixed silver strip and start with a 1-20 ratio with water. and lightly spray or splatter the edges. If that doesn't work or work fast enough, lower the dilution rate. You want a dilution that attacks the silver slowly in a way you can control.

When you get the effect you want, rinse with water and back up. If you get areas that remove the silver entirely, try misting it with different colors or spray paint, then back up.

As usual, don't experiment on you final piece, test on a scrap.

Check out Sara's site, she has a kit with chemicals and instructions to accomplish a similar effect.

Sarah King · Post by **Sarah King** » Tue Jan 25, 2005 10:57 am

Rod, I forgot to mention on the phone that lead mirror is not just one color and might do what you want - especially on glue chipped glass. If you look carefully as it is depositing it goes through stages from light brown to blue to purple and then to grey. If you pour it off at the blue/purple stage that is the color you get on the front of the mirror - subtle but cool and certainly not "flat". The effect is especially noticable at the edges of the piece. Might be worth a try.

Also, Lee Littlewood told me about a friend of his who silver leafed a piece and then smeared it with mayonnaise and wiped that off - maybe with alcohol. He said he got some good looking brown and purple swirls. I haven't tried it yet but its one more fun thing to look at. Egg yolks contain a lot of sulphur - maybe skip the mayonnaise and go straight to the egg yolks - non-toxic anyway.

Sarah