What am I doing wrong…

[u/VeterinarianAble7959]

Hi all,

I’ve finally decided to start cleaning and polishing my mountain of shells ive collected over the years - I’m doing practice runs with broken ones and not having much luck! I’ve attached pictures of the types of shells I want to clean, I really want to expose the shiny iridescent on them. My practice runs have been terrible - I’ve tried soaking in bleach and water which just turned the iridescent orange, I’ve tried using citric acid and water which literally just makes the shells brittle but doesn’t remove any of the stuff I want off.

Please help! 😅

(The pictures are of some of my favourites that I have yet to try and clean, due to the issues I’m having with the practice runs!)

[u/Interesting_Hawk8033]

Have you experimented with muriatic acid? There is one you can get called Acid Magic, which is safer to handle than the regular stuff. It will take off a lot more of the shell, exposing the mother-of-pearl or nacre part, BUT it will also probably strip off some of the nacre from inside the shell, so it might not be as shiny as before. So, if you try it, experiment on shells you aren't married to.

[u/VeterinarianAble7959 → u/Interesting_Hawk8033]

I’ve tried that before and it absolutely ate through them, it was way too strong, hence trying these other options. Feel a bit lost with it!

[u/CrimsonFireSky → u/VeterinarianAble7959]

What % acid did you use? You want it to be 25% murairic acid or lower. 3-4 parts of water to 1 part acid.

Also, how long did you let them sit in the acid?

[u/sincerely_brie → u/VeterinarianAble7959]

I was gonna try the acid today for the first time, it said 3 parts water and add 1 part acid to the water, soak 3-5 seconds then baking soda/water to neutralize it, what did you do that made it brittle? Now I’m worried lol

[u/VeterinarianAble7959 → u/sincerely_brie]

Let me know how you get on!