Silver care · 15 September 2026 · 5 min read
What Happens When You Send Silver for Polishing
What we actually do to a piece between it arriving and it going back — and what we will refuse to do.
Short answer
What Happens When You Send Silver for Polishing
A piece sent for polishing is first photographed and weighed, then assessed for damage and loose stones. It is cleaned in stages — chemical bath for the recesses, hand work for the raised surfaces — then repaired if needed, re-polished, and weighed again. You get before and after photographs, and the weight on both, so nothing can go missing.
- Weighed
- Before and after
- Typical turnaround
- 3–7 days
- Guarantee
- 2 years, written
- Pieces we did not make
- Accepted
Handing over silver to a workshop you have not used before is an act of trust, especially with a temple piece or something inherited. The honest answer to "what will you do to it" is a short list, and we would rather you knew it before you decide.
On arrival
- The piece is photographed from every side, as it arrived.
- It is weighed, and the weight is written on your receipt.
- It is checked for cracks, thin spots, loose stones and previous repairs — all of which change what can safely be done to it.
- Anything we find that you did not mention is reported to you before work starts.
The cleaning itself
Recessed areas and deep chasing are cleaned chemically, because nothing mechanical reaches into them without flattening the detail around them. Raised surfaces are then worked by hand. The order matters: doing it the other way round drives residue into the recesses and sets it there.
Stones are checked and re-set where they have loosened, and structural repairs — a cracked rim, a broken loop, a worn hinge — are done before the final polish rather than after, so the repair is finished to the same surface as the rest.
What we will not do
- We will not polish an oxidised or deliberately antiqued finish as though it were tarnish.
- We will not machine-buff a piece whose chasing is already worn thin — we will tell you it is at its limit instead.
- We will not re-plate over damage to hide it.
- We will not proceed on anything we find mid-job without telling you first.
The piece goes back with after photographs and its weight. Our finishing work carries a written two-year shine guarantee: if the finish dulls in that time through normal use, we restore it at no cost.
Questions about this
Will polishing make my piece lighter?
- Barely, and we weigh it before and after so you can see. Polishing removes the tarnish film and a negligible amount of metal; a heavily over-polished piece loses detail long before it loses measurable weight. Anyone who cannot show you both weights should not be holding your silver.
Can an oxidised or antique-finish piece be polished?
- It can, but usually it should not be. An oxidised finish is tarnish applied deliberately and then cut back off the raised surfaces — polishing it like ordinary tarnish destroys the effect. Tell us if a piece is meant to look dark and we will clean it without stripping it.
Do you polish pieces bought elsewhere?
- Yes, and most of our service work is exactly that — inherited ornaments, temple articles, pieces from other workshops. The two-year shine guarantee applies to our finishing work on them exactly as it does on our own pieces.
Have a piece in mind?
Send us your idol's measurements and we'll sketch a design, share a price and handcraft it.
Start an enquiry
