How to keep the silver plating key in good condition/ good looking?

any suggestion?

No idea. Mine's beyond looking decent.

I saw some of my mate's bassoon
some of their "silver" fell of.
some of their "silver" turns black.

I afraid my new Renard 240, will come soon,has the same.

I use a silver polish cloth that looks like a normal yellow cloth but it's got silver polish in the material. I use it about once a month. You can get the polish as a liquid which is often stronger but you have to be careful not to damage the wood. A cloth is easier to control. Similar products are available for nickel keys etc.

When you play a bassoon you will leave residue from your fingerprints on the metal.
These can over time attack the metallic coating.

It can help wiping the keys shortly after each playing with some cloth to remove most of this residue.

A polish once in a while might help as well, just make sure it's not too abrasive, you don't want to remove the coating (plating) just remove the chemical compounds that have formed of the metal (reaction with air and the chemicals in your sweat residue)

Cheers
James

Hi,

I once tried also such a silver polish cloth. It was saying that it prevents the silver for tarnish, but in fact after a while my bassoon was so tarnished... I can not discribe, it was terrible. So I was told by a Holzblasinstrumentenmeister (a guy who builds woodwinds like bassoons): never use such "normal" silver polish stuff at your bassoon!!!
He advised a special German polish in a tube, it is called Unipol (Lippert-Unipol GmbH, Rudolf-Harbig-Weg 10, 42781 Haan, Germany). It is really great.
Normally I use a normal clean cotton cloth for wipe after every playing. If my bassoon becomes dark after some month or after a year I use Unipol.

Greetings, Martin

Wow! I love how the Germans just keep stringing words together until you end up with one gigantic word that means everything!

Martin, is there a place to buy this stuff?

Hi Drew,

I don't know if you can buy it in the USA. But there is a German located Company selling a lot of music stuff via a huge website. They should sell "Unipol" throughout the whole world. http://www.thomann.de/
But you have to know:
Unipol is very soft to the silver (and to the laquer/wood, too, but don't polish the wood with Unipol! ;-) ). But anyway don't use it to often. Because every time you took a very little silver away! One time per year is recommanded and it will prevent your keys for tarnish, too. In between just use a normal dry and clean cotton cloth for removing your sweat.
So, if you use Unipol take only a very few of it unto a clean cotton cloth and polish a little part of your keys. Wait only a few seconds and wipe it off with another clean cotton cloth. That's all. It will look like new! :-)

Hope it is useful, always good reed! Martin

Martin, thanks for that info, and the same good reed to you!