Sunday, December 13, 2009

December 7, 2009:
Copper & Pickle


Sounds like a bad craving by a pregnant woman!

But it's not. Pickle is what you use to clean the black fire scale that is left on copper after you fire it. It eats away the black and leaves you with pretty copper waiting to be shined up like a new penny.

I chose to use Silver Prep. It's natural and not a haz mat accident waiting to happen. And according to some it smells 'less bad' than the regular pickle. Although it smells pretty bad!!!

So, my Silver Prep arrived. I went to Kroger in search of a Lil Dipper crock pot and found instead a 1.5 quart crock pot that was on sale for $10.88 - SCORE! Little larger and less expensive! PLUS the pot comes out and can be cleaned in my dish washer - got to love that!

I came home, read the directions for the 15th time and then let it go. About an hour later I checked and it was pretty hot so I added my copper test pieces - the good and the bad. The whole and the broken. I wanted a good test. Someone had said it may take longer with the non-toxic stuff so I left it in for 2 hours. A bit of over kill but IT WORKED! The pieces came out clean with no scale left at all.

And the mountains - ohhh boy is this piece going to be stunning!!! I'm very, very excited by copper now.

Still no pics - will post later. I'm on a mission to finish silver pieces that will be gifts before I head out on a business trip!

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