Silver, not nickel silver, platers

[Jbeckett]

So does anyone plate with actual silver anymore?
Curious. I’ve had Stork (awesome people) plate pieces but have sold them, and Warburton as well.
I just want to make sure if there’s a true reputable silver, not nickel silver, player out there that most folks use.
Nickel allergies have kept me from steadily playing on brass cored pieces for five or so years.

Thanks

Jeff

[brassmedic]

So does anyone plate with actual silver anymore?
Curious. I’ve had Stork (awesome people) plate pieces but have sold them, and Warburton as well.
I just want to make sure if there’s a true reputable silver, not nickel silver, player out there that most folks use.
Nickel allergies have kept me from steadily playing on brass cored pieces for five or so years.

Thanks

Jeff

I don't think nickel silver plating is a thing. You can nickel plate but nickel silver is an alloy of copper, zinc, and nickel. And I don't think any modern mouthpiece makers use nickel plating. Anderson Silver Plating can do silver plate for you.

[JohnL]

Nickel allergies have kept me from steadily playing on brass cored pieces for five or so years.

I suspect that there's something going on other than nickel sensitivity, as there should only be trace amounts of nickel in a regular silver-plated brass mouthpiece.

Bruce is the chemist around here, so hopefully he'll chime in, but I think Brad is right when he says plating with a nickel silver alloy isn't a thing.

[elmsandr]

Silver plating is thin, if you keep mouthpieces on the rim and let them be scratched… you could see some sensitivity through them.

But yeah, any reputable mouthpiece is played in silver, no nickel involved in the plating.

Cheers,
Andy

[ghmerrill]

Nickel allergies have kept me from steadily playing on brass cored pieces for five or so years.

What does this mean? Have you actually had allergic reactions to silver plated mouthpieces? Which ones?

[Jbeckett]

Brass and nickel allergies. For the past five years. I am meticulous about all of my horns and mouthpieces. Never leave them out and never let the rim touch anything other than my chops.
Brass leeching is evidently more common than ever with low quality brass or low density brass in the market.

[BGuttman]

Silver plating is available and there are lots of people who will plate it. Anderson Plating has traditionally done musical instrument (and mouthpiece) plating since they are located near where most of the instruments are/were made (Elkhart Indiana and Elkhorn Wisconsin). If you need a mouthpiece replated, Doug Elliott does it, and Stork in Vermont does it. Anderson used to require large orders so a plating job for an individual would not be taken (or cost a ridiculous amount).

Silver is normally plated directly on brass, unlike gold which needs a barrier layer between the brass base and the gold plate. It's still done in many stages including doing the silver first as a "strike" plate to get adhesion to the base material followed by the main plate. There are also many cleaning and rinsing steps in the process.

You can't plate most alloys. The only one I've ever done is tin-lead solder (not RoHS compliant, so not used any more). Gold is frequently plated as an alloy in the jewelry industry where colored gold is popular; often in very thin layers and the gold content of the plating is around 60%. For a mouthpiece you would want pure gold plate, and a thicker layer (but still thinner than normal silver plate).

[Jbeckett]

Silver plating is available and there are lots of people who will plate it. Anderson Plating has traditionally done musical instrument (and mouthpiece) plating since they are located near where most of the instruments are/were made (Elkhart Indiana and Elkhorn Wisconsin). If you need a mouthpiece replated, Doug Elliott does it, and Stork in Vermont does it. Anderson used to require large orders so a plating job for an individual would not be taken (or cost a ridiculous amount).

Silver is normally plated directly on brass, unlike gold which needs a barrier layer between the brass base and the gold plate. It's still done in many stages including doing the silver first as a "strike" plate to get adhesion to the base material followed by the main plate. There are also many cleaning and rinsing steps in the process.

You can't plate most alloys. The only one I've ever done is tin-lead solder (not RoHS compliant, so not used any more). Gold is frequently plated as an alloy in the jewelry industry where colored gold is popular; often in very thin layers and the gold content of the plating is around 60%. For a mouthpiece you would want pure gold plate, and a thicker layer (but still thinner than normal silver plate).

I’m going to reach back out to John Stork.
The piece that he played for me was great and I did have a gold plate on top.
I see many pieces that tarnish easily or are darker in color than silver. No idea what it is but the content is not silver.
I do appreciate the help

[hyperbolica]

I see many pieces that tarnish easily or are darker in color than silver. No idea what it is but the content is not silver.
I do appreciate the help

It could be silver or tarnished silver. Straight stainless steel. Titanium is a darker gray. Nickel is dark but shiny. Could also be chrome plate.

I might also suggest plastic rims. Lots of advantages including hypo allergenic.

[Jbeckett]

I’ve been playing Giddings and Houser pieces for a bit with no negative effects. Actually very positive effects. Just a lack of options in some senses. Like a large tenor piece that a bass trombonist could use.

[brassmedic]

Silver plating is available and there are lots of people who will plate it. Anderson Plating has traditionally done musical instrument (and mouthpiece) plating since they are located near where most of the instruments are/were made (Elkhart Indiana and Elkhorn Wisconsin). If you need a mouthpiece replated, Doug Elliott does it, and Stork in Vermont does it. Anderson used to require large orders so a plating job for an individual would not be taken (or cost a ridiculous amount).

Silver is normally plated directly on brass, unlike gold which needs a barrier layer between the brass base and the gold plate. It's still done in many stages including doing the silver first as a "strike" plate to get adhesion to the base material followed by the main plate. There are also many cleaning and rinsing steps in the process.

You can't plate most alloys. The only one I've ever done is tin-lead solder (not RoHS compliant, so not used any more). Gold is frequently plated as an alloy in the jewelry industry where colored gold is popular; often in very thin layers and the gold content of the plating is around 60%. For a mouthpiece you would want pure gold plate, and a thicker layer (but still thinner than normal silver plate).

I’m going to reach back out to John Stork.
The piece that he played for me was great and I did have a gold plate on top.
I see many pieces that tarnish easily or are darker in color than silver. No idea what it is but the content is not silver.
I do appreciate the help

It's not difficult at all for silver plate to tarnish and turn darker. I've seen silver plated mouthpieces that were literally black.

[ghmerrill]

It's not difficult at all for silver plate to tarnish and turn darker. I've seen silver plated mouthpieces that were literally black.

I have a hundred year old tuba. When I bought it, it was black. Studying its history, it turns out that it was at least "double thickness" silver plate, and possibly triple thickness. Buescher offered both options at that point (I have a photo copy of the catalog page). When I cut down the slides to make it play at A=440 I was astonished at how thick the silver plate was.

[Posaunus]

I see many pieces that tarnish easily or are darker in color than silver. No idea what it is but the content is not silver.
I do appreciate the help

Why do you conclude that these tarnished pieces are not silver-plated? (As are >90% of all brass mouthpieces.). These are readily tarnished. Silver tarnish can be very dark or ... black, as previously noted. That tarnish is generally fairly easily removable, with silver polish or the aluminum foil/baking soda process.
Have you tried these techniques?

Options to silver plate include gold plate, titanium, stainless steel, polycarbonate, delrin, acrylic, ...

[Burgerbob]

Not all silver plating is created equal... but it's all silver plating. Nickel plating is going to look WAY different than even the weirdest silver plating.

[harrisonreed]

Nickel is less susceptible to tarnish than* silver, so if your mouthpiece is black, it's likely pure silver plate coated in silver sulphide (aka tarnish). So technically the content that is "not silver" is sulphur, but that was added after the mouthpiece was bought and played.

It may be that the way a mouthpiece is buffed will change the way it tarnishes. But I'm not sure.

* Edit sp.

[ghmerrill]

It may be that the way a mouthpiece is buffed will change the way it tarnishes. But I'm not sure.

Yeah, my experience with silver-plated stuff is that the smoother the surface, the more tarnish-resistant it seems to be -- and also the easier it is to polish. With that old tuba of mine, it took me three complete repolishing cycles before it finally shined. I used that as an opportunity to test a bunch of different polishes. Haggerty's won across a variety of evaluation categories.

The approach I took over time was to "touch up" the shine periodically with one of the silver polishing cloths available from several sources, and then once a year do the full polish -- which, on a (particularly smallish) tuba, is just a painful and lengthy experience. Getting in all the nooks and crannies, around the braces, between the valves (!!!) is just torture. I still have that horn, sitting in a stand, watching me as it slowly tarnishes and I don't use it. I think I need to do a full polish on it soon -- before it gets totally out of hand again.

[Jbeckett]

Nickel is less susceptible to tarnish than* silver, so if your mouthpiece is black, it's likely pure silver plate coated in silver sulphide (aka tarnish). So technically the content that is "not silver" is sulphur, but that was added after the mouthpiece was bought and played.

It may be that the way a mouthpiece is buffed will change the way it tarnishes. But I'm not sure.

* Edit sp.

Makes sense

[hornbuilder]

Mouthpieces are silver plated. They are not played with nickel silver or nickel, since bare nickel is known to cause skin contact issues.

Any brass item that is silver plated gets a strike coat of copper, before the strike coat of silver, followed by the final heavy coat of silver. Silver does not adhere well to brass without the copper strike coat

I would suggest the issues you're having may be caused by the silver plate oxidizing. It may not look oxidized, but it does oxidize at the microscopic level. Polish the piece.with some silver polish, then wash with detergent.

[ghmerrill]

Polish the pi ce.with some silver polish, then was with detergent.

Or get a Lexan rim put on it.

[Jbeckett]

Mouthpieces are silver plated. They are not played with nickel silver or nickel, since bare nickel is known to cause skin contact issues.

Any brass item that is silver plated gets a strike coat of copper, before the strike coat of silver, followed by the final heavy coat of silver. Silver does not adhere well to brass without the copper strike coat

I would suggest the issues you're having may be caused by the silver plate oxidizing. It may not look oxidized, but it does oxidize at the microscopic level. Polish the pi ce.with some silver polish, then was with detergent.

Helpful as usual. Thank you Dr Walker!!!

[Jbeckett]

Polish the pi ce.with some silver polish, then was with detergent.

Or get a Lexan rim put on it.

If it was a Greg black or an Elliott, I probably would. Playing Laskey (vintage) and Housers.

[ghmerrill]

If it was a Greg black or an Elliott, I probably would. Playing Laskey (vintage) and Housers.

You can still have the bowl threaded and a different rim put on it. Doug does that kind of work and others do as well. I assume your Houser rim isn't threaded? Houser will thread the rim and it looks like they offer Delrin rims -- though the listings of those are a bit peculiar.

[LeTromboniste]

I seem to recall that there are two (or more?) different solutions commonly used by shops for silver plating. A colleague in Montreal was experimenting with them about 10 years ago, and I remember her saying something to the effect that the resulting silver plate when using one of the solutions was irritant to some people, but not the other. And that some people who experience "allergic" reaction to silver-plated brass mouthpieces and assume they are reacting to brass may in fact be reacting to the silver plating.

Matt, Brad, any truth to that in your experience?

[BGuttman]

Max, there are two general classes of silver plating solutions. One (the oldest) uses silver cyanide in the plating solution. This is very dangerous stuff -- cyanide vapors are used for executing people. There is an "acidic" silver plating solution that is much safer to use.

I've also heard of silver plating solutions that include some nickel. I think the nickel in the deposit is intended to provide strength or hardness. Nickel in the plating could trigger nickel allergies in some people. A good mouthpiece plating would be pure silver.

[brassmedic]

Interesting. I didn't know that.

[hornbuilder]

Hmmm. I could see silver/nickel being used for "decorative" plating, to provide added wear resistance. Similar to some gold platers using Cobalt for the same reason. I wasn't aware of that being a thing, but it wouldn't surprise me. Checking with the plater first would be a wise move.

[BGuttman]

I found it out browsing the Web sites of the suppliers I used to use. Btw, they've all been absorbed into larger companies who are more interested in promoting other products than precious metal plating.

[Chronos91]

I don't have any experience with cyanide silver professionally or from my own personal use, but the non-cyanide solutions I've used can still be reasonably tarnish resistant if deposited on a polished surface and given a treatment after plating it. I'll need to do a quench test to get a better idea, but the silver plating I did directly onto a crappy brass piccolo trumpet mouthpiece a couple of weeks back didn't show obvious adhesion issues. Plating is reasonably accessible for small scale items, though, so I wouldn't be surprised if there are tons of places that will do it for reasonable prices.

Yeah, I'm imagining that the nickel in a combined silver/nickel deposit is for the coating to get wear resistance in an engineering application. Interestingly, when looking into gold sulfite plating, I found arsenic was used in one solution (50 mg/L) to increase the hardness and brightness of the deposit. If I ever make the solution to test and use it, I'll probably not include the arsenic. That would partially defeat the purpose of going the non-cyanide route.

[TromboneMonkey]

For what it's worth, some of the responses here recommended using a plastic rim and I would only recommend that if all parts of the cup/shank are fully plated in silver or gold.

Simply having a cup cut for a screw rim leaves brass exposed. I don't react to silver but do react to brass and have reacted to pieces cut for a screw rim.

I do use a white delrin rim full time now, though.

[Doug Elliott]

I'd be interested to know specifically what mouthpiece you've experienced sensitivity to.

I know that my plater uses no nickel in either silver or goldplating, or the flash coat. And as far as I know it is the cyanide process.

[Jbeckett]

In interest of keeping said manufacturer in good standing, I’ll say that they’re from a reputable maker. I’ve also had reactions to Bach and getzen pieces as well. I believe that it is strictly a brass allergy, but was curious about the process. The cyanide derived process is intriguing tho.
I’m using stainless with no issues but would like more options.
I will try a plastic rim and have some vintage Laskey that I will gold plate. I like the rim to be somewhat slippery and not grip my chops as well.

[ghmerrill]

I’m using stainless with no issues but would like more options.

Interesting, since most stainless steel contains nickel. I've reacted quite unfavorably to it in circumstances such as stainless steel eyeglass frames and (significantly worse) surgical steel screws used in repairing a fractured patella (and which had to be removed somewhat prematurely because of my reaction to the nickel). But I've never had any reaction to a broad range of silver plated mouthpieces.