Best Silver Polish?

[MedicineMan]

Looking to shine up a moderately tarnished horn, so...

What silver polish is best for:

1) Results
2) Ease of application/removal
3) Not overly abrasive to the silver plate
4) Not going to send me to the hospital from nasty fumes

I’m sure there are other factors I’m not taking into consideration, so please feel free to point out anything else I should consider as well. Thanks!

[the elephant]

You need to try Tarni-Shield by 3M. Great stuff.

For any longtime users of this product who read this, the bottle changed recently, and the product is now marketed by 3M as a part of its Scotchguard line. It is the same product that came out in the 1970s, though.

Tarni-Shield used to be sold by a mom & pop startup run by a jeweler. It was sold via mail order to other jewelers for years. We used it on our bugles in DCI every day. It was very good stuff — wipe on, allow to dry, and buff off with a soft diaper.

The 3M company bought them out sometime in the early 1990s, I have heard. It originally came in a baby blue bottle, then 3M put it into a black bottle with a similar logo, and that is what most people remember. The new bottle looks like a different product. It is not, though. I promise. I use it a lot.

[chite]

Another vote for Tarni-Shield. I haven’t seen it on the shelves of any big box store but Amazon has it in single and multi-packs.


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[ParLawGod]

I've always used Wright's Silver Polish with great results. Water-based, so it's easy on the horn...and ammonia free.

[KingTuba1241X]

Flitz always worked pretty good.

[Mithosphere]

Tarnishield. I use it on all silver instruments. Used it on the 130+ year old helicon too.

[bloke]

Looking to shine up a moderately tarnished horn, so...

What silver polish is best for:

1) Results
2) Ease of application/removal
3) Not overly abrasive to the silver plate

Being lazy (and aligning with 1-2-3), I use these types of products with rubber gloves (long ones, because I'm sloppy) and a very soft washcloth...Some like to use the term, "microfiber", yes?

The particular brand that I have (no idea, as I don't keep it in the original jugs) stinks of sulfur, until rinsed off with water.
I'm allergic to sulfur, but using it (indoors - not ventilated) has never made me feel ill...I've used it countless times, and will (probably...??) only end up dying once.

It takes off the black on contact.

Just as with bleach - and other alkalines, it makes your fingers feel slippery (and then very dry) if you let it get on your fingers.
If it gets on my fingers, I negate the alkaline (the sooner the better, to avoid a couple of days of dry hands) with cleaning vinegar and water rinse.

It's FAST and NOT messy. I'd recommend using it in a bathtub on an old towel, or outdoors in a poorly-cultivated area on an old towel.
Again...because you don't want to buy 50 friggin' gallons of it - along with some huge tank, you won't be recovering what you use, so (again) a saturated soft washcloth and some rubber gloves.
Rather than ANY rubbing at all, it simply dissolves the tarnish (silver sulfide - Ag2S) from the surface.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Goddard-s-1 ... /306056484

...If anyone remembers a crazy picture of a silver tuba with black "zebra" stripes, I had just run a washcloth of that stuff across that tuba a few seconds earlier, and - wherever it ran/dripped down across the black tarnish - it cleaned off the silver sulfide instantaneously...
Of course, it took a few passes with the saturated washcloth to knock all of it off.

The is really the ONLY way to do a nice job on CRISP (recently-done) satin-silver finishes, because any abrasive-type polish will get embedded in the finish, and only some type of petroleum-based solvent (eek!) will get MOST of that sort of thing off.

Tubas just have too much surface area and too many difficult-to-reach nooks and crannies for me to consider going back to using any abrasives as silver polish…even if they are expensive, and rated as top-of-the-line abrasives, such as Tarnishield.

[scottw]

Cape Cod polish. It comes in a tin can, with 12 individual packets of a treated soft cloth, vinyl gloves and a micro cloth for final wipe. Rub it on the surface, after a few seconds, wipe it off. Smells of vanilla, not toxic, no irritation, very easy to use on a variety of metals. Great stuff. Easiest product I've ever used, but works so well.

[opus37]

I use Tarishield too, but I apply it, let it sit for a while then wash it off with water. I then wipe it down, let the horn dry and then add a coat of car wax.

[MedicineMan]

Thanks to everyone for their advice. I decided to try Tarni-Shield and finally got around to shining up the horn today. Although it smells a bit funky, it is easy to apply and remove. And most importantly, the results look pretty spectacular!

[Furguson11]

You need to try Tarni-Shield by 3M. Great stuff.

Ditto

[greenbean]

Twinkle is good.

[kingrob76]

So.... with Tarni-Shield no longer being available... I'm looking for something for "light" tarnish removal (think "maintenance" cleaning vs deep cleaning). I've got Wrights, and grabbed some Haggerty's spray just now off of Amazon. Any other (current) suggestions?

[arpthark]

So.... with Tarni-Shield no longer being available... I'm looking for something for "light" tarnish removal (think "maintenance" cleaning vs deep cleaning). I've got Wrights, and grabbed some Haggerty's spray just now off of Amazon. Any other (current) suggestions?

Dang! I didn't know it was being discontinued. I have a lot of old silver instruments to clean up this spring. I have about a half bottle left.

My repairman recommends this stuff:

https://w.maasinc.com/shop/metal-polishp/

[Mary Ann]

I have used MAAS on my unlacquered horn, and it did a nice job being a lot less abrasive than some others, but it was not "wipe on wipe off." I still had to rub.
I do notice it says "sterling" as opposed to "sliver plate."