About the service
I work with melchior and nickel silver flatware and serving pieces — the sets that came out of a grandmother's sideboard wrapped in a towel and were forgotten for thirty years. Every job starts with an honest assessment. I lay the whole set out, count the pieces, and look at what is actually wrong: deep tarnish, green spots of corrosion, bent tines, a cracked handle joint, a chased pattern worn flat by decades of abrasive powder. Then I tell you plainly which pieces are worth the work and which are better left alone, because over-restoring an old set destroys the very thing that makes it yours.
Tarnish comes off chemically and by hand, never with a coarse wheel. Aggressive buffing is what eats engraving: one careless pass across a chased rim and the ornament is gone for good. Dents are raised over shaped stakes with a soft mallet, split handles are re-soldered with a matching alloy so the seam disappears under the final polish, and a worn chased pattern is re-cut by hand with punches, following the lines the original master left behind. Where the plating has rubbed through to the yellow base metal, the piece is degreased, activated and re-plated in a cyanide-free bath. I plate to a real, measured thickness rather than a decorative flash, so a spoon that goes back into daily use still looks right ten years from now.
Finishing is done in stages — cut, colour, then either a mirror or the soft satin the set originally had. I hand the work back with written care instructions, and I will say the main one here: the dishwasher is what kills these sets. Hot alkaline detergent strips the protective film, salt pits the surface, and contact with stainless steel in the same basket sets up a small galvanic cell that eats the plating from the edges inward.
What is included: photo assessment of the whole set and a piece-by-piece verdict; gentle tarnish and corrosion removal; straightening of bent bowls, tines and blades; soldering of cracked handles and loose ferrules; hand re-cutting of worn chased ornament; electroplating with a stated micron thickness; staged polishing to mirror or satin; and a care sheet for keeping the set right at home.
Tarnish comes off chemically and by hand, never with a coarse wheel. Aggressive buffing is what eats engraving: one careless pass across a chased rim and the ornament is gone for good. Dents are raised over shaped stakes with a soft mallet, split handles are re-soldered with a matching alloy so the seam disappears under the final polish, and a worn chased pattern is re-cut by hand with punches, following the lines the original master left behind. Where the plating has rubbed through to the yellow base metal, the piece is degreased, activated and re-plated in a cyanide-free bath. I plate to a real, measured thickness rather than a decorative flash, so a spoon that goes back into daily use still looks right ten years from now.
Finishing is done in stages — cut, colour, then either a mirror or the soft satin the set originally had. I hand the work back with written care instructions, and I will say the main one here: the dishwasher is what kills these sets. Hot alkaline detergent strips the protective film, salt pits the surface, and contact with stainless steel in the same basket sets up a small galvanic cell that eats the plating from the edges inward.
What is included: photo assessment of the whole set and a piece-by-piece verdict; gentle tarnish and corrosion removal; straightening of bent bowls, tines and blades; soldering of cracked handles and loose ferrules; hand re-cutting of worn chased ornament; electroplating with a stated micron thickness; staged polishing to mirror or satin; and a care sheet for keeping the set right at home.
