Cleaning brass.

I’ve acquire and old wooden adjustable tripod that is very dirty….I intend to sand and varnish the legs, but wondered if anyone had any suggestions for cleaning the brass….leaving the patina is not an option.

 

Start with very fine wire wool, grade 0000 .and then if you want a shine then I guess it's Brasso .

 

Autosol

 

soak overnight in cocacola?

 

Trying ketchup as it was dinner time and already out!
Wasn’t sure if coke just did ( allegedly) rust.
Will be getting some fine wire wool to try as well.

 

Google

 

Soak in white vinegar to remove the worst then Brasso wadding to finish.

 

Small stainless steel wire wheel in a Dremel, then varnish it?

Worth a polish with Brasso. It's only three ha'pence a tin. You can buy it or nick it from Woolworths.

 

Plenty of suggestions on Google… was hoping that someone had actually done something similar.

 

Yep, I made a tray from ali foil and used baking soda and er something, it worked very well as it got in the corners and nothing got scratched. Details on youtube.

 

Muck.

Unless the saying is incorrect.

 

1000 grit wet or dry then 1200 then autosol then duroglit wadding if you want to see your face .

 

You might find that sanding off that amount of wear and grime is going to make some of the wood quite thin.

Looking at it , some of the metal looks like it has the same black paint on it as the wood. Where its greenish, its patina.. black maybe paint.

So maybe a little application of thinners to the metal and the wood may be a good start. You may find that you can get a lot of the paint off without sanding away too much wood.

 

Know anyone in the Royal Navy? They love to polish anything brass.

 

We used to clean brass brought up from wrecks on the sea bed in diving trips. One of the issues was that if you use harsh chemicals you can change the composition of the brass and it often turns a red hue etc. I'll try and remember the good stuff and get back to you.

 

The sweet spot is surely a French horn playing ex bosun from Barnsley that owns a pub, likes draft horses and taking etchings in his own time with mind boggling OCD?

 

Apparently, the only service left using the old Lanchester submachine gun was the RN. I suspect it was the large brass bit that held the magazine that attracted them. Something new to polish during those those long days at sea

 

Why?

If you want new buy new?

Funny stuff brass - I started off polishing it up on the boat portholes and fittings because a lot of it it had been protected with varnish stuff and was mostly shiny already. Then I thought sod this, removed all the protection and let nature do it's thing. To me it looks much better.

 

This has been in a shed for probably 20+ years and is covered in dirt/grease god knows what…..and it’s going in our lounge…and we both are a bit OCD …. well I say a bit …..