Silver metal is cheap. Would it make sense to "tin" cookware with silver instead of tin? I know some chocolate molds are "tinned" with silver -- I presume either to improve release from the mold or avoid giving the chocolate an off flavor.
The device I wish to "tin" is antique cast iron, and is actually a meat or juice press, so no cooking will be done with it.
Silver is more toxic than you might think. You don't wanna end up looking like Montana politician Stan Jones, or Rosemary Jacobs (look 'em up)
Iron should reduce silver out of a silver nitrate solution without an electroplating machine if you wanna experiment with it. I don't know if the silver will stick to the iron.
Interestingly, a silver nitrate solution will etch copper.
Argyria is not a toxic reaction. It more like the skin color change caused by eating excessive carrots, tomatoes, etc. due to their carotenoid content.
It would be worth knowing how resistant silver is to chemical attack.
I don't really have a choice in this case. In electroplating, it is sometimes necessary to put down another metal before the top metal -- for example, nickel is usually required under gold, as a barrier layer to prevent the gold from diffusing into the base material. Gold directly over copper gets sucked into the copper.
However, I believe silver can be used directly on iron. Whether or not an intermediate layer is needed, I know it can be done, because Anton Reiche chocolate molds were iron or steel, and they used silver plate.
Yeah, but when I shine it up it'll look real pretty.
I have considered gold -- considering that most of the expense of electroplating is labor and shop charges, the cost of the metal is not that much. I figure it would be even more inert than tin or silver. And it would fantastic.
I knew that, it was a rhetorical question. So silver plating on a pan isn't likely to be all that toxic either. People did used to eat with silverware made out of actual silver or silver plating.
"K. Reece" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@uni-berlin.de:
Good for you! Some people may think it's crazy, but I find that many foods taste different whether eaten with stainless steel or silver/silverplate flatware.
Speaking of dental... IIRC, amalgam fillings used to contain small amounts of mercury, another heavy metal that can be very toxic. Apparently, it is stabilized in the composition.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark Thorson" Newsgroups: rec.food.cooking,sci.materials Sent: Friday, July 16, 2004 8:29 PM Subject: Tinning Cookware with Silver
[Compared to what?]
Would it make sense to "tin"
[Tin is fairly inert, it doesn't give an off flavor, and it works much easier - the process of tinning is like coating a hot copper pan with a stick of butter. It provides a renewable coating that doesn't allow the copper, which is good at conducting heat but somewhat reactive, to taint the food. This would not work with silver and iron- the melting temperature of silver is much higher, and it wouldn't adhere well due to oxidation of the iron surface at that temperature. I suppose if you used a flux you could maybe get silver solder to stick, but it would be tedious to treat a large surface this way. I suspect the silver coating on the molds you mention is electroplate, probably on a brass base.]
[A duck press? Why not have it nickel-plated? I think that's the usual treatment for them. You could have gold put on top of the nickel if you you really wanted to impress folks...]
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