restoring cast iron fireplace

[Matthew J.E. Durkin]

Hi All, I have a rather lovely cast iron fireplace. However, the cast iron mantle shelf is haevily marked mostly with what look like pot marks. The whole fireplace looks pretty old, and is heavily tarnished towards a black colour - I'm not planning ot change this as it looks nice. However, I'd like to remove the marks on the top as these don't look good. Does anyone know what I could use to remove these marks? I'll only be cleaning the top surface of the mantle as this is the only marked area. Many thanks, Matthew

[R Taylor]

Zebo

RT

[Matthew J.E. Durkin]

what's Zebo? Where can I get it? Ta, Matt

[Mike Halmarack]

Hardware shops often have something called Zebrite in a yellow and black striped tube. It's graphite paste, i think, mixed with a little lamp black perhaps. I used to put it on with a shoe brush, then polish it for a while until the blackness being transferred to the rag reached an acceptably low level.

[Steve Firth]

It's a rather old fashioned type of cough sweet in a small round tin. Or was that Zubes? Haven't seen em for ages.

I think you were beign directed towards Zebrite which is grate blacking made by Reckit and Coleman (now Benckiser I think). It's also available as Stovax blacking.

You may also want to consider the sprays sold to blacken stainless steel flues. I was very impressed with the one I used to do the woodburner in the kitchen. Again, I think it is made by (or badged by) Stovax.