Melchior: cleaning at home.

New products made of nickel silver can hardly be distinguished from silver. Melchior - an alloy of silver, copper, nickel and zinc. Very popular are nickel-silver cutlery, there are fewer jewelry and dishes made of nickel silver. Like silver, products made of nickel silver over time darken. To return to them the original radiance is a troublesome and laborious matter.

From high humidity darkens and silver and nickel. Cleaning of products should be carried out regularly. Specialists recommend cleaning nickel after each application. To do this, you can use a solution of baking soda in the ratio: for 1 liter of warm water 50 g of baking soda. But if the cutlery made of nickel silver is used daily, it is not always possible to carefully look after them.

Cleaning of products made of nickel silver can be carried out at home. It is better to use special means: solutions, pastes, napkins or polishes. As a rule, these products are sold in jewelry stores. But since we are talking about cutlery, the risk of getting harmful chemicals into the human body when eating is high.

Cleaning the cupronickel at home can be done in the old fashion - using a piece of suede, crushed chalk, alcohol or vodka. All these tools help to cleanse well the darkened cupronickel. Cleaning in this case turns into an endless rubbing of objects to the original shine.

It is widely believed that toothpaste or tooth powder cleans darkened cupronickel. Cleaning, however, can be unsafe, because mechanical action can leave microcracks on the surface of the product. In this case, the nickel will darken even faster.

Experienced housewives shine with silver hydroxide products are returned using ammonia alcohol. Pour it into a container, and in turn lower into it the cupronickel products. After that, the products are thoroughly washed under water and wiped dry. This method of cleaning the nickel silver is good, except that ammonia has a sharp odor, which can make the headache and worsen the state of health.

There is an opinion that the boiling of the cupronickel products in the husk of garlic also gives them shine. But in this case it is rather difficult to determine the concentration of the decoction of the garlic peel on which the success of cleaning the cupronickel depends.

If you have enough large items made of nickel silver, they can be cleaned in a water bath using citric acid. First of all, it is necessary to find a container in which the cupronickel product will fit. Then we pour water into it, fill citric acid at the rate of 100 g of acid per 1 liter. Water and add a small piece of copper wire. When the water boils, in it you can in turn lower the cupro-nickel products by 15-20 minutes, depending on the degree of contamination.

But there is another well-known and time-tested way to clean nickel. Cleaning with baking soda. Many housewives love to use soda as a cleaning agent, referring at the same time to its safety for health. Soda removes any contaminants well and is well washed off from surfaces.

So, to clean the cupronickel products you need a saucepan, foil and baking soda. The bottom of the pot must be lined with foil. Pour water and cover the soda at a rate of 4 tablespoons of soda for 1 liter of water. Boil the water and, without turning off the fire, put in the pan the cupronickel products for 15-20 minutes. At the end of the product made of nickel silver it is necessary to dissolve under water and wipe dry.

If cutlery made of nickel silver is not used every day, then they need to be stored, wrapped in foil. This will help to avoid darkening.

No matter how troublesome it is to maintain the purity and brilliance of nickel-silver products, you should always find the time to put them in order. Serving the table with darkened nickel-silver priors is considered a bad form. And even to use radiant instruments is much more pleasant.