Cleaning fiddly brass bits

[dave moore]

Hi all

 

Woke up this morning...wet. Plans to visit the Malvern Giant Flea Fair abandoned, so we decided to stay at home. We have some Arts and Crafts metallic bits here, along with a few gas mask bag chimney chains, all of which needed attention. Googled " home made metal cleaners" and was rewarded with a recipe for brass

 

Half a cup of white ( wine ) vinegar

A teaspoon of salt

Add flour to make a paste.

 

Worked this into the chains, rosettes etc and some other stuff...left for half an hour ish, washed in warm soapy water, as per internet instructions, dried off....tarnish reduced but not the hoped for shine of glittering clean brass.

 

Later on, used Goddards Metal polish liquid on the stuff.....cleaned up to a high sheen with almost no effort, this could be useful to those who still enjoy? polishing brass.

 

Hope this helps

 

Dave

[Timleech]

Salt and vinegar combine to make (weak) hydrochloric acid.

A salt & vinegar bath is one way of derusting iron and steel artefacts.

 

Tim

[Derek R.]

Heard of several 'recipes', one included lemon juice and brick dust! Anything coarse will scratch - even Solvol Autosol though the finish is very good. 'Bluebell' was one of the fine ones - much the same as 'Brasso'. For dark brown (tarnished) brass I've found 'Shiny Sinks' and maybe better - 'Bar Keeps Friend' very effective. These contain Oxylic acid which eats into the tarnish - but gladly not your hands. Bar Keeps is in powder form apply with a damp cloth, leave, then rinse off. But they don't seem to give the highly polished finish that the likes of Duraglit wadding do. I too have tried Goddard's 'long term' brass polish with good results.

 

I think you can go too far in trying to get every nook and crannie polished, takes away the 'old' element somehow.

 

Rust from iron and steel can be effortlessly removed through electrolysis. Plastic bucket of tap water, piece of steel or iron as an anode, 12V battery charger and washing soda.

Details:

http://spaco.org/Blacksmithing/Rust/ElectrolyticDerusting.htm

 

PS: Put some brass nuts or ball bearings in the Brasso tin - given some shakes it stops the useful sediment solidifying in the bottom.

Edited August 26, 2014 by Derek R.

[David Schweizer]

I have been using vinegar and salt to clean brass for decades, it is particularly good at removing years of green gunk from old oil lamp burners. Just one word of warning, don't leave the paste on for too long or it will draw the tin out of the brass and leave a copper surface.