Badly tarnished brass

Letter 7940

Badly tarnished brass

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I have an 18th century lamp with brass parts that have oxidated so bad I can't get them clean. It belonged to my husband's family and I would love to restore the brass. The remainder of the lamp is two shades of etched colored glass that is beautiful and the entire lamp is very ornate including the brass parts which makes it extremely hard to clean unless I could find a very powerful dip.

Can anyone help? At this point the lamp might as well be trashed. Thanks,

Nan Anderson
- Clemmons, NC

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I have experimented with a lot of brass cleaning products on really crummy oxidation. One sequence I have found to be helpful is to start out with a wet paste of 'Barkeepers Friend [link is to product info at Amazon]' powder on an old Terry Cloth washcloth and rub the
Heck out of the piece. You better have on some rubber protective gloves [link is to product info at Amazon] as it eats your skin up if used for any period of time. We used to be able to find Twinkle paste which worked as the next step but haven't found it lately. We had to substitute Wright's Copper Cream [link is to product info at Amazon] which I think worked
better than Twinkle actually. How you proceed from step 3 is up to you. I have tried motorized polishing bonnets with bar abraisives for polishing metal of different grits, as well as Dreml bonnets with Maas Metal Polish [link is to product info at Amazon], Wenol [link is to product info at Amazon], etc. and they all work well. I think the Brasso [link is to product info at Amazon] liquid product works OK but not as highly polished as you get maybe with MAAS metal polish. You want to thoroughly wash off any residue and spray a protective clear coating on when you are done. I am still hunting for the perfect clear coat.

GEORGE D. BALLENTINE
- ORLANDO, FL, USA

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