Cleaning & Removing oxidation from Bronze Gravemarkers

A. After trying many chemicals, I tried Simple Green with much success. I sprayed it on full strength, used a stiff bristle brush and then rinsed thoroughly. After doing this twice, I am quite satisfied with the result. Not quite like new, but not bad.

A. Well, one thing that I did that removed oxidation the best was a mixture of vinegar [in bulk on eBay or Amazon] and salt together that makes a acid that removes the oxidation within a couple minutes. It worked great for me. Try it yourself =)
Sincerely,

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Vinegar and salt (or lemon juice and salt) is a reasonably strong acid that works fast. However, it can leave copper and brass rather raw and orange looking, and you may want to finish up with a commercial brass cleaner like Brasso [on eBay or Amazon] to give back that softer glow.

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
2005

A. Addressing the issue of removing oxidation and discoloration from bronze grave-markers, if the problem is well established (a gray-green uniform coloration) your best bet is to consider having the marker sent off for reconditioning. Writer has recently tried "too many" web recommended products ranging from Simple Green, Whink, vinegar & salt, & Tarn-Away to muriatic acid, all with NO success ... indeed the markers looked better before with uniform deterioration. Internet research reveals there are a handful of companies that engage a process similar to sandblasting using tiny glass beads to do the cleaning and produce a product that looks like new. At which point unfortunately the decay process starts again but can be retarded by wax or a coat of polyurethane.

A. I am an owner of a gravestone service company located in the Panhandle FL. I would like to add a couple of simple methods to make this process for the owners life easier in maintaining their loved ones bronze memorial. We restore these markers from the worst condition in hours and you can too ...

First brush the marker off and clean away debris. For a single size marker: Put 1/4 cup sea salt in 2 cups of white vinegar and mix until salt has dissolved. Mix flour with the vinegar and salt solution until you have a paste (like peanut butter). Put this solution on the marker with a small inexpensive paint brush. Make sure you don't see any part of the marker thru the solution; cover with large plastic bag laying across the marker and let it sit for 2 hours. The discoloration you saw will now be in the flour mixture when you remove the plastic bag. The flour mixture (poultice) will have green in it. Scoop up the mixture from the marker and place in plastic grocery bag. Next mix a little Ivory liquid soap in a pan of water. Use a bronze brush (can get at any hardware store) to clean the lettering and design and a natural or brush to clean marker with some of the remaining flour mixture left on the stone and the soapy water. Rinse with water. You don't want to scrub the painted area with the bronze brush because it will remove the paint.

In our experience, Brasso will also take the paint off the marker. To make the marker shine and protect it, there are UV waxes sold commercially on line, haven't seen any in store. But, you can use Johnson's paste wax and it will clean some of the leftover darkness on the stone as well as put a shine back on the marker. When the paint is destroyed or lettering is still tarnished, there is another process the owner can do rather than spend lots of money.

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This is a lot of absolute nonsense! Don't waste your time. After more than 3 hours spent preparing the bronze memorial, mixing the salt, vinegar and flour, and applying the gook, then waiting the prescribed 2 hours, then removing it, nothing had changed!
At last I picked up a bottle of Brasso [on eBay or Amazon]. That, along with some rags and a little elbow grease, gave the results. I then applied a few spray coats of exterior gloss finish clear enamel.

 Hi Ted. Sorry that you put in a lot of time with the salt, vinegar and flour with no result; I'm sure it was frustrating. And thanks for posting an alternate solution which worked better for you.

Still, Lucy generously put in a lot of work with exacting details here, and even posted before-and-after pics proving it has worked for her grave cleaning service. So, "Thank you, but didn't work in my case" would probably be more civil than "This is a lot of absolute nonsense!" :-)

My guess is that the marker you were working on had a clearcoat (transparent paint) which prevented the acid and salt mixture from reaching the metal. Brasso has, in addition to its acid content, stoddard solvents, ammonia (another solvent for some coatings), and abrasives (which can wear away coatings) which means that there are certainly conditions/situations where polishing with Brasso will be more effective.

Regards,

A. Grave markers, eh? That's a new one.

There are a few other threads floating around here for brass and bronze items, most of them beds. A lot of those folks have been pretty happy using a citric acid cleaner.

adv. (E.g. my product CitriSurf 77)

Given the specifics of grave markers I can't say for sure if that will be the best thing, but I suppose it's worth a try. Also might have to be careful with it depending on what the markers are mounted on, certain materials like concrete and limestone can be significantly attacked by exposure to acid.

A. We walk our dog in a nearby cemetery every morning. I've been interested to see the effect of aging on the bronze markers. Some appear as new for as much as 15-20 years, others weather to various brown and/or green colors within a year.

I haven't see any of them which look like they have been refinished, they have all been let to age naturally.

The ones which show age only after many years have some sort of clear coating from the factory, but I doubt it's anything you could do on site.

What I'm saying is this - I think your particular marker either originally had no clear overcoat, or it was a poor one which soon failed.

You *might* get it cleaned up using a battery-powered electric drill with some mounted buffing pads and buffing compound, but it will be a lot of work, and will soon weather again.

I understand your concern, but I don't think it's a problem you can solve.

A. Bronze memorial markers have a clear coat lacquer that has been applied to keep the marker looking new for a long time. If you put WD-40 [on eBay or Amazon] on a bronze marker you will remove this lacquer and the aging process will begin.

A. adv.
Hi all. Aside from being the inventor of Scratch-B-Gone for Stainless steel and long time poster on Finishing.com, my company is a field service company specializing in bronze plaque refinishing. We manufacture a RIY kit called Restore Marker Care System from my early years restoring some and bronze in cemeteries. This is a DIY kit but we can also do it for you. Call to discuss.

A. Hi Tamara. I seriously doubt that the lettering was painted or plated, or that it's necessary to paint or plate it, but paint sounds easy enough. We've appended your inquiry to a thread on the subject where a number of people have offered their ideas and successes.

For additional stories if interested, please see topic 22020, "Cleaning a military bronze cemetery plaque". Good luck.

Regards,

I tried a restorer. It did pretty good, but I'm going to try another before I wax it.

Pat

adv.
Tamara..it is beautiful thing you are attempting to do and we have made a kit for just this very purpose. The bright bronze/brass you seek and reference is just under the surface of the oxidation you see. The work is in removing the surface corrosion to expose the beauty below. Go to YOUTUBE and search 'restoring bronze grave markers' by Matthew McCauley where he uses our Cemetery Marker Rescue kit to do just this. The only thing you need to add is a can of lacquer to finish. Best wishes.

A. Hi Casey. Although your question is about a statue, it seems to be pretty well answered by these replies about bronze grave markers, so we appended it here. Good luck, and let us know how these ideas work for you!

Regards,

A. Hi Terri. It may seem that a bronze cemetery marker is a bronze cemetery marker, but some are very old, some new, some have various clearcoats, others don't, and looking for consensus is like trying to herd cats. Maureen W. has told us that the problem with WD-40 is that it removes the clearcoat; whether this is true or not, it would seem to have no applicability to a 50 year old green marker; as an oil, WD-40 might give a little shine and help water roll off, but I don't think it will help with the cleaning. I would try the flour, vinegar and salt; if it doesn't work, then you'll need to either try Barry F.'s restoration kit, or have it sent away for bead blasting. Good luck.

(Decades ago I lived in a motel in Fairview Park for a month or so before finding housing for my new job in the Cleveland area.)

Regards,