I remember when I was first started making jewelry and how odd I thought it was that you had to pickle metal. I quickly found out that pickle is a key step if you’re going to be heating or soldering jewelry.
Pickling is a hot acid bath that’s use to remove flux, oxidation and firescale from your jewelry after soldering, annealing or just cleaning metal before soldering it. This is a very important part of jewelry making and seeing that you need to have clean in order for solder to flow properly, this is a must. Let me tell you how to make, use and dispose of it in the next couple paragraphs.
There are a lot of options when it comes to pickling solutions. Some of them you can just buy and add to water and others that can be made using just household items that might surprise you. I’m only going to go over two pickling solutions that I use along with a bonus solution that has saved me lots of time and work.
Sparex NO.2 pickling solution
Sparex NO.2 is my personal go to when it comes to pickling solution. You can get it from a lot of different online retailers and it’s pretty inexpensive, coming in at about $13-$25 for a 2.5lbs bag.
This bag will last you a long time seeing that Sparex is non-biodegradable so it doesn’t really break down over time.
One thing you need to make sure to do is keep moisture away from the bag or container that you keep it in. This is a dry granular acid so once you open the bag make sure to keep any moisture out of it seeing that it will clump together and turn into a solid chunk of acid.
You can throw some silica gel packs into the bag or container to keep the moisture away from the acid.
This is a very easy pickling solution get setup. All you need to do is 2 tablespoons of Sparex NO.2 to every cup of water that you're using.
You’ll need to use a glass or ceramic container to store this in. This will work at room temperature but it takes a long time so to speed this up you'll need a small crock pot.
Acids work faster when they’re hot so this will dramatically speed up the cleaning process and you’ll be able to get back to working on you piece sooner.
Sparex NO.2 shopping list
- Sparex NO.2 Pickling Compound - https://amzn.to/2JOd7Er
- Crock-Pot 2-QT Round - https://amzn.to/2yncDQh
- Measuring spoons - https://amzn.to/2JOW3xN
- Silica Gel Packets - https://amzn.to/2ti2zmo
NOTE: Once you get this all setup you can never use these items for food ever again so just keep that in mind.
Homemade pickling solution
If you'd rather go the homemade route then I have good news for you! Everything you need might already be in your kitchen. All you need is white distilled vinegar and table salt.
Just add 1 teaspoon of salt for each cup of vinegar you use.
Just like the Sparex this works best when hot so you will need a small crock pot for the best results.
So why does this work? Vinegar is a weak acid and adding salt to it makes it into a stronger solution along with the heat. This reacts with the copper oxide and dissolves it.
This method's solution does have a couple cons though. I hope you like or at the very least don't mind the smell of hot vinegar because it's going to make your work area smell.
One other problem with it is that it is biodegradable so the pickle will start to break down over time and stop working. Unlike Sparex that you can just add more water to it an the water evaporates.
Homemade pickle shopping list
- White Distilled Vinegar - https://amzn.to/2JQvrwu
- Table Salt - https://amzn.to/2K7nN07
- Crock-Pot 2-QT Round - https://amzn.to/2yncDQh
- Measuring spoons - https://amzn.to/2JOW3xN
NOTE: Once you get this all set-up you can never use these items for food ever again so just keep that in mind. Also just because this is made from food products doesn’t mean that after using it don’t become hazardous waste. I will talk about this at the end of this post in the disposal section.
How to use the pickling solution.
Now that you have your solution of choice let’s talk about how to use it. Both of the compounds that I talked about can be used is the same way and I’m going to assume that you are going to be using them in a crock pot.
Once your mixture is in the crock pot and it's hot you can now add you copper, brass or silver to it. You'll need some kind of copper wire or tongs to remove your pieces from the pickling solution.
Let’s say you have 10 rings you need to pickle, instead of picking each one out one at a time with the copper tongs you can just use a thin piece of copper wire to string them together. Normally it takes about 10-15 min to for the pickle to clean your metals.
When it’s time to take them out you’re going to want to neutralize the acid with some baking soda mixed into water. You can use a small plastic or ceramic bowl to store the baking soda mix. Just submerge you piece and rinse it off.
These are the copper tongs that I have been using for years - https://amzn.to/2K9KJII
Never use steel in you pickle solution
You might be thinking, “why can’t I use steel?” well this is due to how it reacts with everything. So when you heat metals that contain copper it’ll make a coating of copper oxide on them, we use the pickle to dissolve it.
This means it’s now in the pickling solution and once steel touches the pickle it’ll start a plating reaction. This means if you have anything in the pickle pot it will be plated with copper. So keeping it free of steel is a very good idea unless you’re wanting to plate the metals.
Why does my bass have pink spots after pickling?
When using brass in your pickle pot you might find that it has pink marks on it. This might make you think that it is getting plated and something is wrong with you pickling solution but this is normal.
See brass has nickel in it and this acid will pull nickel from the brass leaving behind the copper. That being said if you leave your brass in the pickle too long it'll ruin your metal.
I once forgot that I had a brass ring in my pickle pot and came back to you about 24 hours later to find a mostly copper piece of metal that was very brittle.
So what if you do copper plate your work or have pink spots on your brass that you just can’t get rid of? Well that is where the bonus pickling solution comes in in the next section.
How to remove copper plating and pink brass with Super Pickle
Yes, there is a pickle solution that you can make at home that will dissolve the copper from your work.
All you need is some white distilled vinegar and hydrogen peroxide in equal parts.
Put this mixture into its own glass or ceramic container and submerge your piece into it.
You will see little bubble all over it and the copper will start to disappear. You might see some black marks on the pieces but this is normal.
Just keep an eye on this and once it longer has any copper on it, take it out. You don’t want to leave the piece in too long, if you do it’ll start to dissolve more than the copper on the outside of the metal.
This process will leave an odd dull pattern on the metal, this can be polished or buffed off. Once you are done with this “Super Pickle” you can just add it to the pickle solution in your pickle pot.
How do you dispose of your pickling solution
Once your pickle is no longer working or just has too much copper infused into it you’ll need to dispose of it but at this point it’s now considered hazardous waste.
It’ll be full of copper oxides that’ll give it a blue look. This is highly toxic to aquatic life so don’t just pour it down your sink.
I know in some areas, depending on how your sewage system is setup you can flush it down the toilet. This is only because it’ll go to a waste treatment plant.
If you happen to have a septic system or just don’t know how your sewage system is setup I would suggest taking it to a household hazardous waste disposal site near you. You will have to google one in your area for times and locations. Make sure to put the pickle into a seal-able plastic container and label it “Sodium Bi-sulfate with Copper” so they know what it is.