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My mushroom vents are baddly tarnished (brass) is there any products or better still kitchen cupboard products that will remove the tarnish without hours of polishing?

Also what do you guys and galls use for your glass in the fire front?

Many thanks

Gary

. Glass and brass, just dip a wet rag in the fire ash and give it some elbow grease all shiny and sorted

Brown sauce, glass? dunno.

Phil

. It's the vinager content of the sauce that does the cleaning so any vinegar based product also rough cider has a similar acid content and works well if you soak stuff in it
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Bar Keeper's friend for me too, mix to a white paste, apply, leave, remove, repeat if necessary and then finish with Brasso or whatever. An alternative is to buy a polishing mop and some " soap" , fit the mop into a drill and off you go.

 

Good luck!

 

Dave

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When I did mine a couple of years ago they were tarnished to the point of being nearly black. As an ex military person I'm afraid that my idea of brass goes against the grain of some on here, which is leave well alone and let the verdigris build, I like my brass shiny. It took me nearly 2 weeks to get mine to a point where I found them acceptable. Copius amounts of brasso and T Cut, which is a slightly more abrasive than brasso, and then fine wire wool. If I had had a polishing wheel for my bench grinder it would have made the job a lot easier and quicker. I have one now so next time it should only take an hour or so. I also put laquer on after I had got them bright and shiny and that has lasted a year or so.

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Another vote for fire ash on the glass. Moisten paper, dip in fine ash, rub glass, polish of with clean paper. Job done.

 

I also hail from the school of shiny military brasswork. Solvol (of Autosol fame) do a marine polish which is good for deeper cleaning, but I find what the military call Wadpol (aka wadding polish of which Duraglit is one brand) to be quickest and easiest for a regular spruce up clean. I'm not a fan of laquered brass as the effort required to restore once the laquer fails in more than the effort to maintain the bare metal itself imho.

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Yes I have only used the laquer on my mushrooms because they were such an absolute pig to get anywhere near acceptable I couldn't face them again for a while. To be honest I only put a couple of coats on of the spray stuff and that does seem to come off quite easily with a fine wire wool. I do not use laquer inside the boat. Those brasses just get a good clean every couple of weeks or so. Yep Duraglit is good once the brass is up to a good shine but I found Brasso and and that sort of stuff not aggressive enough initially. Every one is saying about ash and newspaper and those sorts of things which are fine once the brass is starting to come clean but when the brass is as bad as mine was initially that wouldn't have touched it. I had to use a coarse emery paper and coarse wire wool at first which did get rid of the thick verdigris but, of course, left scratches in the brass. That is where a decent polishing wheel would have been handy at the time.

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Yes I have only used the laquer on my mushrooms because they were such an absolute pig to get anywhere near acceptable I couldn't face them again for a while. To be honest I only put a couple of coats on of the spray stuff and that does seem to come off quite easily with a fine wire wool. I do not use laquer inside the boat. Those brasses just get a good clean every couple of weeks or so. Yep Duraglit is good once the brass is up to a good shine but I found Brasso and and that sort of stuff not aggressive enough initially. Every one is saying about ash and newspaper and those sorts of things which are fine once the brass is starting to come clean but when the brass is as bad as mine was initially that wouldn't have touched it. I had to use a coarse emery paper and coarse wire wool at first which did get rid of the thick verdigris but, of course, left scratches in the brass. That is where a decent polishing wheel would have been handy at the time.

 

 

And the thing about good quality solid brasswork is that you could practically have started with a grinder! Going through those stages of coarseness means you can bring back some pretty neglected brightwork - which it sounds like you did! Finally, a use for all those boot bulling skills! wink.pngbiggrin.png

 

ETA typo

Edited by Sea Dog
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I have read that covering them with clingfilm helps keep them shiny. I found paint to be the ideal solution, but not to every bodies taste obviously. That said I would never have roof vents on a future boat anyway.

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That said I would never have roof vents on a future boat anyway.

 

Can that be done? I believe the BSS says you must have a percentage of high and low level vent of a capacity based on a formula, but can you get the high level other than through roof vents? I'm not onboard today, otherwise I'd pop my head out to see if there's any boats around without roof vents. It's an interesting concept as the smooth line would certainly be nice, and it might be common as muck and I've just never noticed, but I'm sure someone on here will know..

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Can that be done? I believe the BSS says you must have a percentage of high and low level vent of a capacity based on a formula, but can you get the high level other than through roof vents? I'm not onboard today, otherwise I'd pop my head out to see if there's any boats around without roof vents. It's an interesting concept as the smooth line would certainly be nice, and it might be common as muck and I've just never noticed, but I'm sure someone on here will know..

My friend has had no roof vents on two narrow boats now. He satisfied the Boat safety man at the time of inspection by having a top hopper window of sufficient size fixed in the open position (only advisory now I think?). I assume high level door vents would be OK too.

I hate roof vents because I trip over them, get centre lines around them, they drip with condensation, water splashes in during heavy rain storms, are butt ugly (IMHO,) and spoil a good roof. Never again.

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Our boat has a couple of roof vents, made of steel instead of brass so they don't need polishing, which met the ventilation requirements when the boat was built but didn't meet them after a few years. Luckily our BSS inspector was happy to recommend that we merely needed to fix one of the hoppers open with a couple of screws and add a small label saying "ventilator, do not close".

 

Of course it is now not compulsory, and the vents only fail to meet the requirements if the stove is alight so I confess that between inspections I remove the screws and on cold spring or autumn evenings I close the hopper and then I don't need to light the stove.

  • Greenie 1
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