Medal Restoration

[pgill]

Hi Guys,

A friend of mine bought his collection of medals to me, these belonged to his Father and Grandfather. They really looked tatty, and were going to be given to his grandchild when he grew up. I took it on myself to help him out and fix these up a bit.....



These are a before shot of some of the medals.

I removed the ribbons and washed and ironed them, cleaned up the medals using a Silver cleaning plate which works wonders, and for the others a drop of lemon juice.



Then I sewed on the ribbons again, and placed all the medals onto a frame.



Here is a photo of the Silver cleaning plate. It uses the plate, washing powder and water.



Thanks for looking and God bless
Peter

[warsawdaddy]

Great job,Peter.I saw that plate on tv a long time ago but didn't get one.Guess I'll look again for one of them.Have a great day!

[River Rat]

You did an outstanding job from start to finish. Kudos to you, the display case is noteworthy.

RR

[BloodyBelle]

Some advice followed by a question:

Is that cleaning plate aluminum? Might that powder be salt?

That's what I use to clean flatware. I put aluminum foil on the bottom of the sink. Lay down the flat ware or jewelry. Cover with warm water and salt. And let it sit.* Then rinse, wipe, and hand dry.

Serves 4-6 people.

*I wouldn't do this with anything precious or valuable. Something like that I'd do more homework on. But the above method works just dandy.

I have a medal and insignia cleaning problem. I'm going through a lot that is British and maybe 100 years old. Most are made of crap metal. Yellows and whites. I'd like to clean them up and not make them worse by doing so. Any ideas?

TIA.

[pgill]

Tia,

First off sorry for the reply delay, the forum never told me of your post

I think the plate is aluminium but could be wrong. It looks like it and it is not magnetic..... The powder is normal washing powder you put in the washing machine to wash clothes. The plate works great with silver.

What I use the most for cleaning medals is white vinegar. Leave it soaking for about 15 minutes and scrub with a soft toothbrush. I have used this method on silver, nickel and copper medals without any problems, and I have done lots of medals this way. I then use a lacquer spray afterwards to stop the tarnish from coming back.

Hope that helps you.

God bless
Peter

[civilman1]

Very Nice Peter