I'm fairly new to soldering and have been working with both copper and silver. I have a few pieces I've done in copper that I really like, but the silver plating is showing in many places (still pretty sloppy with it).
After reading about the copper plating method using pickle and a piece of steel I decided to try it. My pickle WAS fresh, but I added copper sulfate to the solution to quickly charge the copper. I dropped a steel washer in there then added my piece. Some spots actually plated, where I had used the good silver solder, the places where I had used some cheaper silver/tin solder did not. But overall, it seemed like the process actually works!
So I started over the next time I had a piece to plate. The piece ONLY uses a good quality silver solder (think I used hard and easy), fresh pickle, more copper sulfate until the pickle was a deep green/blue, dropped in a couple of nails and ... nothing. Dropped in a larger washer and still nothing. (The nails and washer are covered in copper gunk.) Put a small piece of sterling silver in there and it seems to have plated.
Anyone have suggestions as to why my silver solder may not be plating?