Pickling

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Zinc Silicate Crystalline Glaze Pottery

A chronicle of my recent progress and a way for me to keep it straight in my head!

 

 

2-5-10     Ian sent me a pot to soak in the pickle. It has such a small neck it did not fill with water and floated in the bath. I had to force it down under the surface to get it to wet all around. In the "After 1 hour" shot you can see I really didn't have it fully immersed.

Before After 15 seconds After 1 hour After 12 hours
 

Dark and light halos

After ~12 hours (overnight) in cold (50F) pickle.

Before photo from Ian  

1-31-10

After 2 1/2 hours the pickle had taken on a very deep blue green color. The pot began to leak and the setup was drained. It appears the pickle dissolved a chrome plating on the pot and ate through the welds of the stainless steel pot. The pickle was put in plastic buckets and more pots were soaked overnight, in "cooling" pickle.

 

 
Before After 1 hour After 2 hours  

Jewelry Pickle Tank consisting of 32 qt. turkey deep fryer pot, belt heater, thermocouple, controller and insulation. This is pretty nasty stuff and needs to be in a well ventilated area.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I originally followed the recipe on the jug but found that even a pot filled with water floated. This is due to the high specific gravity of the pickle. I endded up adding water to thin it down so the water filled pot would sit on the bottom og hte cooker. The recipe I ended up with is  4960g salt + 14500g water = ~18.5 liters (~4.9 gal.) of solution .

I hope this video plays for you. Give it a minute or two to load. It works on my computer here at home, but not on the one at work. Who knows why!

 

Both pieces saw 24 hrs in cold vinegar. The one on the right saw an additional 6 hours in jewelry pickle.

Solubility Test: 5.00g of the glaze ingredients were slurried in 1 tablespoon of sodium bisulfate pickle and allowed to sit at 55° for 36 hrs. Un-dissolved material was collected on a coffee filter which was dried and weighed. Weighing to 0.00g will yield significant results to 0.0g. Results below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ingredient F413 Frit Zinc Oxide Silica Titania Red Iron Oxide Black Copper Oxide Red Copper Oxide
Dried Weight 4.9 4.5 5.2 5.2 5.2 4.4 4.4
Adjusted Weight* 4.7 4.3 5.0 5.0 5.0 4.2 4.2
% Dissolved 6 14 0 0 0 16 16

* Weight adjusted down by 0.2 grams believed to be due to pickle salt in filter.

 

Rio Pickle™ for Non-Ferrous Metals

 

pickle

1 [pik-uhl]  Show IPA

noun, verb, -led, -ling.
Metallurgy. an acid or other chemical solution in which metal objects are dipped to remove oxide scale or other adhering substances.

A chemical solution, such as an acid, that is used as a bath to remove scale and oxides from the surface of metals before plating or finishing.

 

Some people use citric acid or alum for pickle.

Alum from WikipediaŽ

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I'm using sour salt (citric acid) and so far it's doing the trick for me.  It's still an acid, but considerably easier to get along with.

 I use 1 cup of vinegar with 2 tbs pickling salt.  It works very well on argentium silver - almost instant if it's hot enough.

What is the recipe to make your own pickle?  I know it uses ph down, but I don't know ....

Ph down is sodium bisulfate.

......sodium bisulfate which releases sulfuric acid when mixed with water......they do not tell you just how really dangerous it is........when it gets hot there are fumes that arise when you lift the lid that can ruin your lungs, mouth and eyes..........got a 2 mm drop in my left palm.......has been 3 months now and it has almost covered my whole palm and is very painful.......Baking soda paste is the only thing that gives me any relief.

 

Tim McCreight's  Complete Metalsmith as being used as a pickle.
Looking at Kingsley Norths website, they sell sodium bisulfate

 

....how much sodium bisulfate it takes to make a pickle bath?

...

if you use a heated bath you do not need to use as much as a heated solution will be more aggressive. I use about 2 cups to 20 gallons of water, and add a little to recharge it from time to time. I dissolve it into hot water in a well ventilated space as a noxious gas is released.


Art Jewelry Forum - Pickle Recipe Dialogue

 

 

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Phil Hamling

376 County Route 1

Warwick, NY, USA 10990

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