The big question for me with this is: is there any benefit to using this Silver Polishing Cloth over just trying to wipe up the oxides and dirt on silver jewelry using your eyeglasses cloth?
Well, as I said before I was prepared to be underwhelmed. I’ve actually successfully shined up several pieces of silver jewelry before using nothing but an eyeglass polishing cloth. One disadvantage to that is that it took A HUGE LONG TIME. I sat there polishing like for several minutes and had to use quite a bit of force.
I had an old silver spring ring lying around for about 6 months or so out in the open. It was clearly tarnished, nearly brown in color. I’m pleased to report that using the “Inner” cloth on it gave the results in Fig 3 with just a few swipes of a corner of the cloth. I’ve tried to use the exact same color correction in the photos to show the differences.
I probably spent about 30 seconds wiping it and then about 15 seconds with the “Outer” buffing cloth. It was pretty amazing how little work was required for such a huge difference. It’s like night and day in terms of coloration. I later tried this on other silver findings with equal success, and later tried it on some finished bracelets that had silver in them. One thing about using a cloth in general on a finished item. If there are any sharp or semi-sharp pieces of wire sticking out, it tends to grab bits of the cloth fiber. It can also be more difficult to get into nooks and crannies of finished pieces with the cloth. Still, the results were really promising.
Just to show that it’s indeed working, here’s a picture of the corner of the Silver Polishing Cloth that I used to shine up the Silver Spring Ring in the previous photo. You can see how much of the oxide and dirt came off onto the “Inner” cloth. Wow, who knew that there was that much gunk on it?
In conclusion, I think that this polishing cloth would work well for designers who aren’t making a ton of pieces or for consumers who want to keep their jewelry looking shiny without using wet silver cleaning products or other things. For larger items like plates, you’ll have to use more of the cloth though… and I assume once it gets all dirty like that corner shown in the pic that you’ll have to throw it away and buy a new one. For designers who are using more silver in their jewelry, I think you might want to take a look at other more efficient methods to shine up your silver.
