Important: Safety Warning
This page contains a formula or preparation using substances now known to be dangerously toxic, such as arsenic, mercury, lead, or cyanide compounds. Exposure to these substances can cause severe poisoning, permanent injury, or death.
In addition, this page describes trade processes that use dangerously toxic materials such as cyanide solutions, mercury amalgams, or strong acids. These processes require training, equipment, and precautions far beyond what the text describes.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
Home › Gilding, Silvering, Etc › Silvering Paste
Silvering Paste
Nitrate of silver, 1 part; cyanide of potassium (Liebig's), 3 parts; water sufficient to form a thick paste.
Apply it with a rag. A bath for the same purpose is made by dissolving 100 parts of in water, and dipping the article to be silvered into it. ally for an hour, allow it to settle, decant the sulphite of soda, and 15 of nitrate of silver, c'ear, put it into flat half-pint bottles, and cork them down well. It is used to clean gilding, &c., either alone or diluted with water. It is applied with a soft sponge, and then washed off with clean water. It is essentially a weak solution of potassa, and may be extemporaneously prepared by diluting liquor of potassa with about 5 times its volume of water.