Repairing a scratched brass doorknob!

A. Yes, there is paint that will cover the scratch, unfortunately, on a doorknob it will not last for long. Any and all paint wears off very quickly when it is rubbed. You can refinish the doorknob by sanding out the scratch and re-lacquering, but the time and effort it takes is not worth it. A new brass doorknob costs about $20 around here. When I re-finished the 3 door knobs on my Dad's house, I spent more than $30 on the materials for refinishing and it took about 6 hours per knob. I would have gladly paid the additional $30 to have had those 18 hours to myself. You need to sand 4 times with increasingly fine sandpaper,(using a Dremel [on eBay or Amazon] helps) then polish with jeweler's rouge (polishing/buffing compound) [affil links], then spray paint the knob with clear lacquer. You'll probably need to re-apply the lacquer every year to keep the knob looking new.

Good Luck,

Hi Angela. If the doorknob is rusting, it's steel with a brass plating rather than being solid brass . . . so you won't be able to polish off the finish and lacquer it as Bob describes. A plating shop can replate it with brass, but it requires labor and labor is costly, so the price may be prohibitive if the doorknob was relatively inexpensive. Good luck.

Regards,

A. Hi Sabrina. No paint really looks like bright polished brass to me, and as Bob says, paint may not last anyway. But you can perhaps get the general tone of an older brass with a brass paint like Metallic Spray Paint gilded brass [affil links]. If you put a 2K automotive clearcoat on top, you'll have at least some wear resistance. Good luck.

Regards,

A. Hi, Jewell. Unfortunately, one of the downsides of today's high technology is that there are so many ways to make something look like brass, that you often won't know what you actually have, and therefore how to attack its problems. But if the handle is indeed solid brass, it can be polished to a high shine. Get a Dremel [on eBay or Amazon] and jeweller's rouge as Bob suggests, or get buffing pads for your electric drill and some polishing compound -- even Mothers Mag & Aluminum Polish [on eBay or Amazon] should do -- and polish it back to brightness. It can theoretically be done completely by hand, but it would be a monstrous amount of work, so you'll want some electrically powered polishing tool or other.

Regards,