The Cleaning and Preservation of Metals - Treatment

ALCHEMICAL

A trip to the North West Frontier will open your eyes to the incredible alchemical tricks the dealers play on corroded metal. However, and there is a 'however', what is often unsaid are the catastrophic failures Ieading to the loss of near priceless antiquities and coins when a well tried brew is applied to a less than forgiving metal.

Alchemy, in its sense on this page, is the application of something to what you think you've got, to give you something you hoped for but couldn't guarantee.

In other words, skilled (and sometimes not so skilled) guesswork that can give success or failure, depending upon who did it, to what and when. The intention of this section is to build up on quackery, successful or otherwise and to attempt to put meaning to it: what worked/or failed and why. There is absolutely nothing wrong with an alchemical technique that works, it is just that it certainly helps to know why. Please send us your experiences using the comments section on the response form; we'll put a few of our own on these pages shortly.

[under construction - to follow shortly]

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Last Update, 1-July-96