Brass door handles

[Geoff Berrow]

The house I've bought has brass door handles throughout. The lacquer has come off mostly and the brass has tarnished somewhat.

I can fetch the rest off and polish them up but I'd rather not have to keep doing it. Can anyone recommend a clear lacquer with which to refinish them?

[nightjar]

Rustin's brass lacquer, if it is still made. It is a long time since I bothered with brass door furniture.

Colin Bignell

[Steve H]

Depends on how 'brass' it really is. Most stuff these days is brass plated and the rust gradually works its way through from underneath whatever you varnish with. If this is the case then you might as well buy new ones as bother trying to get all the old laquer off. Mind you, even in plate some of the old ones are much nicer looking than the new (incidentally, when I tried to get a dent out of one and wanted to remove the brass globe from its fixing, I discovered the aluminium looking 'fill' that takes the rod, to be made of some kind if zinc alloy - which rapidly melted when I tried to warm things up to assist disassembly...) Also I notice that suppliers like Screwfix don't seem to see the difference between brass and brass plated - a box of solid brass sockets one week, then a similar order getting plated ones the next - the real brass ones feel heavier and somehow 'nicer'.

Also, most 'polishes' seem to be fake finishes that you can wipe off with a dab of parafin, so you might just as well settle for slightly duller knobs and just give them a wipe with an oily rag regularly to stop the tarnishing. I learned it was better to have a slightly duller 'oil' shine from wasted hours spent polishing motorcycle alloys: left shiny, any drops of water that got on to the alloy would mark it and be very difficult to remove, but covering the shine with laquer, soon has the whole thing looking awful as it begins to chip and let the air etc through, but then is almost impossible to get fully off. A wipe over with an oily rag, on the contrary, gives a more subtle sheen, keeps the rain off, and does not have to be removed with difficulty when it starts to fail.

In general then varnish/laquer is a bad idea on anything that you want to have a good finish on: which is why your knobs now look as bad as they do. Clean off the old varnish with nitromors and give then a good polish - very satisfying. On things like doors and floors that do need varnish I always go for 'diamond hard' because the others always seem to remain tacky and attract the crud, then being tacky they are nearly impossible to sand for recoating.

S

[Andy Dingley]

The only lacquer with any hope of success would be a methacrylate. Rustins make it, Axminster sell it, look for "brass lacquer" or "metal lacquer"