Polishing Confusion

[LiveOak]

I was cleaning up an old silver superspeed to give to a friend. I used scrubbing bubbles and polished it with Maas like crazy. The razor looks excellent, really shiny.

I noticed that no matter how many times I applied Maas and polished/buffed, the cloth would end up with a dark black smudge. Same with the Q-tips on the inside. Considering how shiny this razor looks and how many times I polished and buffed, I can't imagine there's that much grime buried down in that metal. It's got to be some kind of chemical reaction between the metal and the polish.

Anyone else ever experienced this?

 

[MichaelG]

It's metal - you're using a metal polish - and that takes off a thin layer of metal, thus the black stuff. You can keep polishing and you'll keep getting the black stuff. Eventually, you'll wear through the plating.

I was cleaning up an old silver superspeed to give to a friend. I used scrubbing bubbles and polished it with Maas like crazy. The razor looks excellent, really shiny.

I noticed that no matter how many times I applied Maas and polished/buffed, the cloth would end up with a dark black smudge. Same with the Q-tips on the inside. Considering how shiny this razor looks and how many times I polished and buffed, I can't imagine there's that much grime buried down in that metal. It's got to be some kind of chemical reaction between the metal and the polish.

Anyone else ever experienced this?

 

[_MementoMori_]

It's metal - you're using a metal polish - and that takes off a thin layer of metal, thus the black stuff. You can keep polishing and you'll keep getting the black stuff. Eventually, you'll wear through the plating.

Exactly.

 

[maxman]

Be careful when you polish.
when you get the nice shine, stop.

 

[DavyRay]

Everyone is right about this.

STOP

 

[Greybeard]

Nickel oxidizes almost instantly on contact with air. It's that thin film of oxide which forms a protective layer and prevents the nickel from corroding.
The nickel oxide is the black smudge that you see.
Every time you polish, you are removing the oxide layer which is then replaced. You lose a little bit of the nickel to oxidation every time this process occurs. It would still take a long time to wear off all the nickel by polishing unless it's already very thin.

 

[Oldguy]

You can polish through the nickel and continue to polish the brass until there is no metal left at all. Your cloth will still be black. As mentioned above just stop when it looks good.

Len

 

[LiveOak]

Thanks so much for the info! I'm glad I just left well enough alone.