Cleaning Turquoise and silver jewlery

Hi, It’s looking good!

I assume you’re planning to keep the shadowbox look to the surrounds of the set stones, as in, not remove the tarnish there? I think you certainly can leave that oxidation and just lightly brighten up the twisted wire around the bezels and maybe the wire edges. I sometimes use a dry Q tip for closeup work, where you don’t want to get close to the turquoise sets. Enjoy your nice necklace!

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Hi chicfarmer :grin: Thank you so much. Yes, I definitely want to keep the shadow box look. The beads have some kinda yucky areas that I will try and use a q tip for. Thanks so much again :smile:

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It’s a lovely squash! Have fun polishing :grin: I think the bottom left stone looks like the others just with a bit more matrix :thinking:

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Hi Ziacat :smiley: It’s definitely close but I see a bit of silver flakes in that one and none in the others. I can’t remember what you call them. Thanks so much Zia :smile: I’m gonna give it a try but I’m not looking forward to it lol.

I still think they might be the same turquoise just one of them happens to have pyrite and the others don’t. I have a buckle like that.

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I think you might need to take the unfortunate hour long trip down the hand rubbing trail with a silver polishing cloth.
Yep, I timed it. It takes an hour to polish a full sized SB but, I just do it while I’m sitting watching a movie. I don’t know of a safer way to do it when you have turquoise stones involved.

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I’ve dripped bees wax over sensitive stones such as emeralds when dissolving Lead solder on antique jewelry. Same works for turquoise. Protects the stone and cardboard spacers. Then you can use Wrights silver cream and wash with soap and water.

You can also immerse the main necklace in vinegar and salt solution for about 5 minutes keeping the naja clear. That loosens the heavier tarnish. Then Wrights. That leaves you with only the naja to hand polish.

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That’s it pyrite. Thanks Zia. I couldn’t think of that at all. I can definitely see it now that you mentioned that. Are you thinking Kingman for the turquoise? :smiley:

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Thank you so much Phoenix :grinning: I used to find polishing relaxing until I started having to clean sterling for my business. Now my fingers hurt at the thought of it. Ugh but I’ll work on the yucky parts and see.

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Oh wow, Thanks Steve :grin: You are much braver than me. I don’t trust myself with that. I drop everything lol.

Maybe… Kingman, Sleeping Beauty, Persian, and Morenci all can have pyrite. It doesn’t really look like SB, and I’m not super familiar with Persian, and sometimes I have a hard time recognizing Morenci. So I’m not really sure, how’s that for an answer. :laughing:

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That actually made me laugh out loud :rofl:

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