Hi Peter,

I owned and operated a mirror resilvering business for 15 years.  To
remove the old silver, we used a muriatic acid bath. You may find that a
standard oven cleaner would be easier to use.  We stopped resilvering
when disposal of the old lead base paint that was applied over the
silver became a problem.

Al Pebworth
Pebworth's Player Piano Center
Home of "Yesterday's Music"
http://www.pebworths.com