Nickel polish?

[Volitions Advocate]

I haven't been taking very good care of my Warmoth...   Played quite a few gigs this last year with it and mostly I've been making sure its clean and has fresh strings whenever I can. but there was a few late night gigs where I went home exhausted and just left the guitar in the case and didn't clean it till the next day.  and now my nickel plated pickups look ... just awful. and I can't seem to get them clean with a rag.  Is there some sort of nickel safe solvent or silverware polish that would work and get them looking mirror shiney like they were when they were new?

 

[-CB-]

Some folks pay big bucks for covers like that...... but if you want them polished out...

Car wax usually has enough fine abrasive in it.

Dont use silver polish and such... ammonia in it will actually darken nickel (which is why its dark in the first place, ammonia in sweat)

White tooth paste... that'll do it.

Any fine abrasive polish used to leave a shining finish.  Flitz works well.  Mothers maybe too abrasive.  Wenol would be fine.

Personally - white toothpaste.  Not the gel stuff, but old fashioned white toothpaste, a little water on a rag and presto.

 

[Alfang]

I'm surprised we dont have a thread or a local guru here on electroplating.

I'd love to have a little setup to nickel plate parts or gold, chrome....and what if you added diferent colors of metal at the same time? ie...nickel and gold, what would that look like?

 

[-CB-]

It would like like nickel or gold, as one would overplate the other uniformly.

Caswell Plating sells home plating kits.  They're not great, but not bad for small items.  You could redo a cover.... sort of.  Got to remember that plating actually goes on fairly lumpy at times, so a good buff out is needed, which removes plating... you get the idea.

Real nickel covers are not plated, but the same all the way thru, so buff to your hearts content. 

 

[Schlieren]

I use Nevr-Dull on mine and it works like a charm

It's completely non-abrasive and a tiny little bit goes a long, long way

 

[DangerousR6]

I use Nevr-Dull on mine and it works like a charm

It's completely non-abrasive and a tiny little bit goes a long, long way

+1....nevr dull is some good stuff. CB's tooth paste option is a great idea too. For a good polish Mothers is hard pressed to beat next to an actual diamond polish job, not to abrasive at all. We use it on our diamond polished surfaces on some of our molds. Brings it back to a lustrous shine. :icon_thumright:

 

[OzziePete]

Dont use silver polish and such... ammonia in it will actually darken nickel (which is why its dark in the first place, ammonia in sweat)

Thx for that advice, I was thinking Brasso and/or Silvo might have been the way to go.....but their labels do mention ammonia so they are out.

 

[Superlizard]

Why not go for the road-worn, "vintage" look?  :dontknow:

 

[Volitions Advocate]

thanks, for the replies, I had forgotten I asked this question.  I'll give the toothpaste a try. its actually what I use everyday.