Jewelry 101: Pickle

Posted on September 6, 2007 by Leah
Pickle is used to clean oxidation and flux residue off of metal. It is an acidic solution that you can buy from a jewelry supply store, or you can make a do-it-yourself version at home. Pickle can be stored in a glass jar or a ceramic crock pot. It works faster if it's heated up, which is why a lot of people use a crock pot. It helps to keep pickle in a closed container so that the liquid doesn't evaporate as quickly. I use a product called Ph minus for pickle, which is an acid that lowers the Ph level in pools and hot tubs. I dissolve a little of this in water, and it works well for me. I don't bother heating it, since it works fine cold, just takes a bit longer. Other DIY versions of pickle that I've heard of include using Simple Green (the household cleaning product), lemon juice, and vinegar. I can't vouch for how well these work since I've never tried them, but they are all inexpensive and safe, so they might be worth a try. To use pickle, drop your oxidized metal in and wait for the oxidation to come off. Avoid touching the pickle in any way with steel (such as steel tweezers) because this will automatically copper plate everything you are trying to clean. Copper tongs are available for dropping items into pickle and then fishing them out later. Since pickle is an acid, even if you use one of the milder at-home versions, you might not want to get it on your skin, so copper tongs or even some wood chopsticks are useful to get your jewelry in and out of the pickle.
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24 Responses to Jewelry 101: Pickle

  1. Kate says:
    November 30, 2007 at 8:40 pm

    I own a large assortment of jewelry that I wear regularly. My husband also owns a few mens tungsten rings and wears those on a regular basis too. We have found that keeping our jewelry clean is sometimes difficult. Some of the harsher chemicals we’ve tried actually ruined the finish on our jewelry and we had to replace those pieces with new ones. Ph minus sounds like an excellent alternative to the cleaners we’ve used in the past and I think that we’ll end up trying some sooner or later.

  2. John m says:
    November 23, 2008 at 10:48 am

    Be sure to always quench your hot jewelry items BEFORE dropping them in the pickle, regardless of type. The high temperatures will cause the pickle to “burn” and get quickly contaminated.

  3. John m says:
    November 23, 2008 at 10:49 am

    Quench in water before pickling!

  4. Leah says:
    November 24, 2008 at 12:31 pm

    John – yes, this is a very good point – don’t drop hot metal that’s just been soldered into the pickle without quenching or letting it cool off first!

  5. Maria says:
    April 5, 2009 at 10:00 am

    Can you tell me how long you keep your items in the pickle? For example, should you just dip them and try to rub off oxidation or should you wait for the oxidation to disappear?

    Also, does it matter if you’re using the same pickle for fine silver, argentium and sterling?

  6. Leah says:
    April 6, 2009 at 7:10 am

    I leave them in the pickle until most of the discoloration is gone, then I rinse off the pickle, and use something like steel wool to remove the rest of it. How long it takes for pickle to remove all the oxidation depends on a lot of things: how oxidized your metal is, how strong your pickle solution is, and the temperature of the pickle. So you just have to wait and see how long it takes to clean up your pieces. HTH.

  7. JH says:
    September 6, 2009 at 9:01 am

    I left some Sterling Silver in the pickle for a week! (I was busy with other things and forgot about it.)
    The soldered parts all broke off when I pushed on them a little.
    Did the pickle break down the soldered areas and can If I re-solder them will they be OK?

    How long is too long to leave in the pickle?

  8. Leah says:
    September 7, 2009 at 9:23 am

    Pickle might break down the solder – I’ve never had it happen, but I’ve also never left something in pickle for a week. I think you can re-solder them – I would clean the metal & lightly sand or buff the area where you are going to solder first.

  9. JH says:
    September 12, 2009 at 7:25 am

    Thanks, I did re solder and it seems ok!

  10. Cindy Pack says:
    October 12, 2009 at 10:36 am

    Thanks for the tips! Any idea if it’s ok to put brass and copper together in the pickle? I just did and the brass seems to have gotten some copper plating around where I soldered. Have you had any experience with this?

    Thanks! :) Cindy

  11. Leah says:
    October 12, 2009 at 11:57 am

    I’ve actually never soldered brass, so unfortunately I don’t know the answer. There is a great metalsmithing forum at ganoksin.com – I bet somebody there could tell you though. Good luck!

  12. Jim says:
    November 15, 2009 at 8:29 pm

    Rather than soldering, I’m fusing Argentium sterling silver wire. After fusing, the finish on the silver is significantly dulled (by oxidation, I presume). Where it hasn’t been dulled, it is often discolored. I can generally remove the dull finish (but not the discoloration) with a generous application of elbow grease and a Sunshine polishing cloth.

    Will pickle help?

    Thanks in advance!
    Jim

  13. Leah says:
    November 16, 2009 at 12:11 pm

    Hi Jim – I don’t pickle my argentium silver. For discoloration, I know it sounds weird, but running it through a flame a little bit more had gotten rid of that for me. As for the dullness, do you have a tumbler? My argentium comes out of the tumbler all shiny again. If you don’t have a tumbler, a brass brush attachment on a flexshaft or dremel tool also works well to shine it back up. Hope this helps!

  14. Jim says:
    November 16, 2009 at 1:59 pm

    Hi Leah!
    Thank you so much for your quick response! I do chase the discoloration around and will continue to do that. And I do have a tumbler. Have you had any experiences tumbling your silver once you’ve added glass or stone beads?
    Thanks again!
    Jim

  15. Leah says:
    November 16, 2009 at 4:23 pm

    I usually try to tumble before adding stones or beads – just in case, since some stones like turquoise, and pearls, can be damaged by the tumbler. I have tumbled silver with glass and harder stones, and maybe I was lucky, but no damage was done. I’ve heard of people tumbling pearls, even, but it seems risky to me.

  16. Jim says:
    November 16, 2009 at 5:43 pm

    Hi again!
    My experiences are similar – I’ve damaged more stones with heat than I have in the tumbler. I’m usually using harder stones, so I’ll keep tumbling away.
    Thanks again for taking the time to respond. I definitely appreciate your blog and your responses! Thanks thanks!
    Jim

  17. Leah says:
    November 18, 2009 at 3:31 pm

    Thanks for writing, Jim! I love getting good relevant comments on my blog :)

  18. Kristin says:
    December 8, 2009 at 12:50 pm

    Great info, I love that you answer your comments so well! I got here while googling to figure out if it was ok that I left some stuff in pickle before I went to work today…I guess if someone did it for a week, it will be ok until I get home!! :) Thanks so much for sharing the info, and your helpfulness!

    Kristin

  19. Leah says:
    December 9, 2009 at 9:54 am

    Thanks Kristin! Glad you stopped by.

  20. Jewelry Making Supplies says:
    May 7, 2010 at 12:54 pm

    I found your site on del.icio.us this morning and really liked it. I bookmarked your blog and will definitely be back soon to read your new posts!

  21. Raevyn says:
    September 9, 2010 at 12:07 pm

    Just a couple of notes: I do pickle my argentium…works just fine. Pickle will not dissolve a solder join. If things come apart in the pickle it’s because the flux was the only thing holding the solder join together and the pickle has melted the flux away…the solder never got to flow-point. I have never heard of “burning” pickle and always drop directly into the pickle from soldering. This can soften the metal a little and you can air-cool if you want to avoid that, but there is no other reason to wait before dropping things into the pickle.

  22. Scott says:
    February 7, 2011 at 6:54 pm

    I will almost always quench any silver items in pickle as it seems to do a better job in knocking off the deeper oxidation. I haven’t really seen any benefit or issue with doing it with gold, so I usually just quench that in whatever is closest.

    As far as the pickle dissolving solder, it may seem rather far fetched, but seeing as pickle is an acid (and depending on how you mix it/what you use, a fairly strong one), I wouldn’t be surprised to find that, over time, it dissolves solder.

  23. Andrew says:
    March 30, 2011 at 7:01 am

    Two things: In depth responses to heat quenching and excess pickling.
    1. Heat Quenching
    Raevyn I think you have the softening metal thing backwards. If you allow your metals to air cool they end up softer than if you drop them in your pickle or H2O first. The principle is the same as work hardening and annealing.
    Just like glass; metals should be cooled slowly so that they are stronger, more malleable (softer), and more ductile. This is bc giving the hot (excited and vibrating) metal atoms time to slow and align makes for a more resilient atomic structure. Flash cooling whether in water or pickle makes your metal more brittle b/c its atomic structure is frozen in a less than optimal arrangement. (It doesn’t shatter like quickly cooled glass b/c metals are intrinsically more maleable and able to with stand heat and hammer but the principle is basically the same).
    This is the principle behind annealing anything that has been overly work-hardened like mokume gane billet or just wire you’ve bent back and forth a few too many times.

    2. Excess Pickling
    As I am sure everyone is aware silver solder, argentium and sterling silver are not 100% silver. Copper(Cu) makes up a big part of the remainder and in solder there’s also Zinc(Zn). Zn is very soluble in acid and Cu is soluble also but it takes time to dissolve.

    Example:Solid Cu in Sulfuric Acid (H2SO4) (the rxn is similar for any acid: type is irrelevant)
    Cu(s ) + 4 H+(aq ) + SO42-(aq ) –> Cu2+(aq ) + SO2(g ) + 2 H2O(l )
    Acidic hydrogens (H+) steal electrons from the Cu and pull Oxygen from the sulfate(SO42-) producing H2O, soluble Cu2+, and Sulfur Dioxide.

    So… If you left a soldered piece in pickle for a week, after the acid “ate” all the readily available oxygen in the silver oxide it would probably start dissolving the Zn in the Solder, then the Cu in the Solder then eventually the Cu in the Sterling or Argentium.
    JH if left long enough your pickle would be ever so slightly blue. Additionally your solders integrity would be compromised, the pickle having disolved 20%(hard solder) to 40%(soft) of its make up and not simply the flux as another post implied. Your silver would probably be ok if anything a little more pure having some of its Cu dissolved, but it should probably be annealed (heated).

  24. Leah says:
    March 30, 2011 at 7:58 am

    Thanks for the in-depth reply! I didn’t know it was the zinc in solder that dissolves.