Polishing/treating brass and copper

I collect copper fire extinguishers and some of them don’t have any patina on them per se so I keep them bright polished. There are many commercial polishes that will do a good job but it can be exhausting if it’s a big piece. Since you’re dealing with smaller pieces, you might try a buffing wheel in the drill press to work the polish. After polish you can spray a lacquer coat to seal the part and prevent return of the oxidation tarnish

I use Brasso metal polish. I’ve used it to polish my brass when I was in the Army and use it now to polish up my old sink fixtures, an old light switch cover, and quite a few other things around the house. If you spray clear poly over the brass after polishing, it will preserve the shine and keep it from oxidizing.

-- Dale Manning, Carthage, NY

Another option to make it go even faster is to sand the brass with a really fine grit paper. You can sand brass rather well without damaging it. I usually sand tarnished brass with 800 grit paper then 1000 and after that I will use the brass polish. After its polished you can sand again with a 2000 grit paper for a super shiny finish.

-- Dan - "Collector of Hand Planes"

Brasso would be good to get the brass and copper bright again. However, with those old doorknobs, they usually have a lot of decoration which means lots of recesses and such. Although I haven’t done one of those specifically, I had the same issue with other items. I used Brasso to remove most of the patina. To get in all the crevices and such, use a Dremel tool with a felt tip polisher bit. Dip it in the Brasso and work it in to those small areas. Be dilligent and it will work. Make sure you wear eye-pro, Brasso hurts in the eye (ask me how I know!).

-- Mike

Brasso or rubbing compound for automotive work they also sell little buffing pads that fit on the end of your drill that you can put the rubbing compound on. after their clean some clear lacquer will keep it shinny until it wares off.

-- W James Brokenbourgh Custom furniture maker http://artisticwoodstudio.com/

Ketchup or vinager will clean them up.

-- mrg

After polishing them up you can use a good wax polish (furnituer polish will do fine,) all you are realy trying to do is seal the surface to stop exidation

-- Pete G: If you always do what you always did you'll always get what you always got

Check this out

http://lumberjocks.com/Dcase/blog/20221

After looking at Dan’s blog that Chelios just linked and the metal polish that he used, I see now why Dan said above to use 2000 grit sandpaper after the metal polish. With Brasso, that would not be necessary because unlike those other polishes, it has a suspended silica abrasive. Using 2000 grit sandpaper would actually be a step back because the Brasso is actually way finer than that, somewhere around 12,000 grit I believe. I know it is way finer than jeweler’s rouge and finer than 8000 grit micro-mesh just by the difference in the surface it leaves.

-- Dale Manning, Carthage, NY

i tryed ketchup to clean a copper pot rack a few years ago and the ketchup stained it so bad i had to toss it . i tried everything i could find to get it off but nothing worked . the closest i got to cleaning it was some stuff called wizard used in auto body shops.

-- rick

Autosol , available at automotive supply shops (and Lee Valley) Works very well.. for the fine decoration, the recesses etc, a soft toothbrush with whichever cleaner/polish you choose, will
work very well.

-- Glen, Vernon B.C. Canada

I like brasso and a cheap $10.00 WalMart automotive buffing pad. We used to polish brewery brewkettles in this way. I don’t miss that job. :)

-- My dad and I built a 65 chev pick up.I killed trannys in that thing for some reason-Hog