Church Incense Burners. How can I clean one?

A. I think that you will need a nasty organic solvent called "carbon disulfide". It is the best solvent for tars that I have seen. It does require very careful use. Read a material safety data sheet (MSDS) before purchase to make sure that you want to use it. It should not turn the brass black, but if it does, quit using it and remove the black with a good brass polish.
As an alternative, go to the auto wax portion of a big store and look for a road tar remover. It may or may not work, but is easy to get and a bit safer to use and should not harm the brass.

 Thank you so much for your response. Since posting my query, my husband took over the job! He had a reasonable success using Meths!
Also, we discovered that it WAS real brass, after all, but lacquered.
Naturally, after the meths, there was little lacquer left! But it will just have to be cleaned more often! (It looked as though I was the first person to ever try such a thing!) Your information will be most useful however, not only are there many other items I am responsible for cleaning (several tar-stained) But as we spend many weeks of the year on a narrowboat, we often have to remove tar from the roof of that! It trickles out of the chimney, and stains the roof horribly! Yours gratefully MA

A. If you use a small rice cooker filled with water and heat it up place the tared object into the hot water for a few minutes and the tar will soften up to the point where you can use a small knife or chisel to easily scrap the tar off. This way you avoid using any strong or harmful chemicals.

A. Try 5% ammonium citrate solution (pH 9). Lemon and salt mixture can be used too, but ammonium citrate is the best solution. Hope it helps and good luck!