Fire Damage To
Sterling Silver & Silverplate
Mid-20th Century Candlesticks that survived a fire and years of neglect.
(before and after polishing)
These candlesticks had a story that they survived a fire, but never were restored. They were black with tarnish and neglect. I wasn’t even sure that they could be polished. Surprise! They turned out great. Normally, I would recommend that you immediately wash silver that went through a fire with dishwashing soap and water. See below for more information.
The most important thing to do after a fire is to clean off the greasy soot from the fire. The soot is acidic and eats right into the silverplate or sterling.
In this photo (left) , all of this silver was cleaned but it still needs to be polished. The great news is that there will be no further damage from the fire.
What you see here is 10 hours of work washing and drying each piece.
STERLING SILVER TEA & COFFEE SERVICE CLEANED AFTER THE FIRE
This sterling silver coffeepot, teapot, sugar, creamer and tray exposed to fire soo
During the fire the coffee and tea service was exposed to the smoke of the fire. During the fire, the teapot was knocked over, the side dented, spout dented and the lid was stepped on. If you look at the right photo, the tea and coffee set is cleaned but not polsihed. You can see that the sugar lid protected the inside of the sugar bowl so was not exposed to the fire damage. That is why is looks "white" or silver inside.
This sterling silver teapot was damaged during a fire. It arrived covered in soot with a black, greasy tarnished surface but the more serious damage was that the lid was stepped on by fire fighters. This is why the lid is stuck up in the air. In addition, the tip of the spout was damaged, and there was a dent on the side.
It took great skill and three weeks to repair this teapot. I like to work on such difficult repairs very slowly as it can be very challenging to fix a lid that is stepped on.
Tray AFTER restored
Tray with SOOT BEFORE
Tray with SOOT and other OBJECTS are removed
SILVERPLATE TRAY WITH SOOT
In the two right photos above you can see how the objects on the tray created a shadow that protected the tray from the soot damage of the fire.fter the initial cleaning of this silverplate tray to remove the soot from the fire, I did an experiment. The left third was polished very conservatively with a polishing machine and buffing compound. The center third was polished with silver polish by hand. The right third was left untouched. You can still see the slight tarnish from the fire on the right.
Hardly perceptible in the photo, the left third was just slightly "warmer" in appearance, but the hand polished section looked totally acceptable.