Polishing Brass Knockers!

[Thomarse]

Hello!

A very short and simple question.. I am going to paint my front door and add some traditional Brass Victorian style knockers and knobs etc. However I am leaving the existing letterbox in place. This is also brass (I think) and is looking rather shabby since it has been expeosed to the elements for many years.

Does anybody know of any good methods for cleaning the surface to make it shine again? I'm sure there must be some simple old wives way of doing this that has good results

Cheers

Tom

[Mary Fisher]

You can still buy Brasso.

To clean it chemically before polishing it I'd paint it with a limescale treatment. It's a bit aggressive (HCl) but it works and it's quicker than a mild acid such as like lemon juice or vinegar. Then polish with Brasso or some other proprietary brass/copper cleaner. It will be like new!

Mary

[Dave Liquorice]

Unless it's really bad, take it off an bung it in a dish of vinegar for few hours. Troubles is unless you laquer it (and your knockers, oh er missus) they will tranish fairly rapidly. You could just keep polishing them but unless you are very careful you'll end up with polish residue around 'em. This looks worse to my eye than nicely weathered brass.

[Andy Dingley]

Soak it in cheap pickling vinegar for a couple of days. Don't add salt, as that causes corrosion afterwards.

For a mechanical scrubber, use the plastic Webrax / 3M Scotch / Machine Mart pads in varying grades, right down to abrasive-less green kitchen scouring pads.

Don't use Brasso on cast brass. It polishes the highlights, but you can't get the white deposit out of the crevices afterwards. Although Brasso itself isn't too bad for this, the liquids are much worse.

To age cast brass, use the sawdust and ammonia process (posted to rec.woodworking)

If youy expect it to stay remotely shiny then you're going to have to lacquer it. This requires the right lacquer, as brass is fussy stuff. Use Rustin's metal lacquer, which is a methacrylate.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

First soak it in cheap vinegar - non brewed variety. That will remove the hard surface oxide. Agitate with an old toothbrush or similar.

To polish, you can do it the hard way with Brasso etc or the easy way with something like a Dremel and polishing pads. There are no doubt proper pastes available for this but I find Farecla G3 - which is a car paint cutting compound - works well. After it's bright and shiny, wash then spray with a clear lacquer.

[judith lea]

I used toothpaste on mine and it certainly helped but to get it completely renovated, I put a weak acid on it and it worked a treat. However, within a short time it was back to square one as I did not seal it with a lacquer spray - lesson learned the hard way.

Judith Lea At home

[Stephen Howard]

You can speed up the vinegar cleaning by heating the whole lot gently ( smell a bit though ). Quadruple 0 gauge wire wool is excellent for cleaning grimy brass - but will leave a fine matt finish. A proprietary metal polish will bring back a shine...but it doesn't always look right for cast pieces.

Before applying lacquer, clean the piece with lighter fluid and an old toothbrush - this will effectively degrease the piece and remove any polish residues.

I tend to feel that weathered brass looks more natural than polished in exterior surroundings, particularly if it has a complex shape.

Regards,

[Mary Fisher]

Yebbut are you going to be looking at it?

The problem with lacquer (she says, with sad experience) is that if it's scratched it will tarnish under the scratch and it's a bugger to get back to the metal. Far better to let it become oxidised again.

(aka tarnished>

Mary

Mary

[The Natural Philosopher]

This is true..Tried lacquering brass on guitar parts..where it didn't get touched it stayed OK..otherwise forget it. Gold plate lasts a bit longer..

[Stephen Howard]

Something very much like it, most days, yeah.

Good point...and if it's a brass knocker or knob then it's going to get handled, and scratched....

Regards,

[Anna Kettle]

The National Trust use stuff called Renaissance wax which is available in the internet from a couple of specialist suppliers. It stops the tarnishing but doesnt chip or scratch like laquer. Just need to put another coat of wax on each year

Anna

[Robert Laws]

Don't be tempted to leave it in the vinegar for too long or it goes pink as the zinc (?) is dissolved leaving just copper at the surface. If this does happen you have to do some hand polishing to take the surface back down to the brass.

Robert

[meow2222]

I'm surprised you got away with it, and no-one changed the subject to 'Mary cleans her knockers with hydrochloric acid.'

I'll try it next time, sounds a lot faster than the vinegar.

NT

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Yup. It doesn't take long to dissolve the surface coating anyway.

[Mary Fisher]

I'd forgotten about that! Our local hardware shop sells it, I might give it a go - when I've got round to polishing all the brass in our house :-) Thanks,

Mary

>

[Stephen Howard]

In addition to the comments here, you might find this page worth a look.

[Timothy Murphy]

Can one just rub the vinegar on the brass? I have a brass standard lamp which I would like to clean, but it isn't really practicable to soak it in vinegar, or whatever.

[David Hansen]

On Fri, 15 Dec 2006 10:18:34 -0000 someone who may be "Mary Fisher" wrote this:-

Nothing wrong with Brasso as far as I can see. Running a small business I occasionally have the task of polishing the name plates with the stuff. We have something that is a sort of wadding, impregnated with the stuff.

I agree about laquer. Perhaps I should investigate this wax.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Duraglit?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Yup.

It shouldn't be so heavily oxidised as external brassware.