A friend tried to teach me about removing silver tarnish with water,aluminum,and baking soda.He wrapped the silver in aluminum foil, sprinked baking soda on it and put it in the pan of water while it was still boiling over heat.He left it a while and took it out.Now it looks worse and has a very,very dull grey coating on it.What is it?
It might be the tarnish partially removed or it might even be some corroded aluminumYou're not supposed to wrap the silver in the foil, just set it on the foil in a pan while you add baking soda and hot waterTarnish is silver sulfide and and the aluminum (aided by the baking soda) removes the sulfer, turning it back to silverThe attached link explains how the process is supposed to workI'd bet that a good commercial polish can get the grey coating offAnd don't let your friend play with the silver any more.
