How to clean/restore C Jere / Curtis Jere metal sculptures

A. Hi Fritz,
"Without hurting its value" turns the question moot until we know its value :-)
If the lamp is worth $25,000, don't touch it -- call a metals conservator. If it's worth $25 or even $250, you'll have a hard time hurting its value. But technically speaking chrome will never rust, nor will nickel. When you see rust it means the plating has become porous, perforated, pitted or worn away. Short of sending it our for replating, the only thing you can do is remove the rust with chrome polish & rust remover [affil link] and then apply wax [affil link] to keep air and moisture way from the underlying steel.

If the pores or perforations are all small, it can look pretty good again if you keep it well waxed, but if swaths of plating are missing, the underlying steel will not have the bright reflectivity of the nickel-chrome plating.
Luck & Regards,


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

A. Hi, Susan. Magnets don't stick to brass. It probably is brass or copper. There are countless brass polishes, and they work at all different speeds, but a rule of thumb seems to be that the warmth of the final color they leave is inversely proportional to their speed. If it's as hard as you fear, something slow like Brasso [affil link] will take a long time, but something more powerful like Barkeepers Friend liquid [affil link] may work fast enough; if not, you can put it on a soft buffing wheel on an electric drill. Good luck, it's a beautiful work of art.

Regards,

A. Hi, Susan. According to www.truefresco.com/dcforum/DCForumID2/10.html it is possible but unlikely that the artist is actually C. Jere. Per that forum, although Curtis Jere was a real person, it's the name of a studio where works are done by apprentices and that trade name is affixed.

If a magnet sticks, the sculpture is steel. If it looks convincingly like copper or brass it is probably electroplated with that material. The same copper polish should work, but wax it when you are finished, and regularly, because it will rust as moistures penetrates the plating.

Regards,

A. Ted's right, it very nice. The more elbow grease you invest, the better it will look when finished. I can see 8+ hours to make it look really good. I like Brasso [affil link], but there are many good products.

A. Hi Karen. Depending on how large this is, it might be quite valuable. If you consider it such, you can retain a metals conservator from the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works website (thanks to our reader Goran Budija for educating me on this) to examine and restore it.

Internet advice from people who haven't seen it is never "safe", but please tell readers exactly what you've got so misunderstandings are reduced. It was black, rather than brass colored steel like Susan's? Is it steel (magnetic) or is is not-magnetic? If it is steel, does it looks like it might be painted black, or does it looks more like the "blued steel" on a gun barrel? The rust can probably be removed with very fine ("0000") steel wool, but even this can scratch off the blackening. Is it also dirty, or was it carefully wrapped and the little rust spots are the only issue? If it's dirty, water and dish detergent is usually safe as long as you are sure you can quickly get it dry. Preventing it from rusting again will probably require the application of oil; very light rubbing with WD-40 [affil link] will probably help deter corrosion, but keep it under climate control, not in an entry foyer or porch. Good luck.

Regards,

A. Hi Vince. Copper plating, done properly, is a fine finish for artwork. What you are probably referring to was our instructions for grade school children on how to do copper plating with kitchen ingredients for "Plating Demonstrations for Science Class". True that this is non-functional plating just to show the kids the color change as a thin and probably non-adherent layer of copper is electroplated onto their coins or keys.

Lacquer may help prevent the copper from wearing off, but it is not shrink wrap, so it will not keep non-adherent plating in place. Good luck.

Regards,

A. Hi again, Vince. It's not your fault, but nonetheless we're going in circles a bit :-)

You said you read that copper plating is non-functional, and I said that it's the simple, student/amateur level copper plating that isn't robust enough to be functional, but copper plating is fine if done right. And now as an amateur you seem to be asking how to do that functional copper plating. Okay, that's not a problem, but I've got to sort of start over :-)

Electroplating is a well developed industrial process done by professional shops and one easy option is to send your device to one of them for high quality plating. If you want to do the plating yourself, it is certainly not impossible to do rather good electroplating, it's just quite a bit harder than most novices who saw it done in science class might think -- because, again, the copper plating you see in science class is to demonstrate a principle, not to do adherent & functional copper plating.

First off, you cannot do acid copper plating (copper sulphate, vinegar [affil link], battery acid [affil link] or anything like that) on steel, zinc, aluminum, stainless steel, or some other substrates, it won't adhere -- you can only use it on copper, brass, nickel, or silver. To deposit copper plating directly on steel with adhesion, you would need to use a cyanide copper plating solution which is totally out of the question for an amateur, or a tricky copper pyrophosphate or a proprietary complex.

But, as noted, you can deposit an acid copper solution onto a nickel surface ... and you can directly electroplate nickel onto steel. So the path forward is to nickel strike first, and then immediately copper plate, and then apply a benzotriazole-based tarnish deterrent, and then lacquer it (or you can use a brass lacquer that contains the benzotriazole likeIncralac [affil link]). You absolutely can copper plate it yourself, but you have to really want to in order to have enough patience to learn enough :-)

Good luck. You could probably start by searching the site for 'nickel strike copper plate' since this process of nickel striking followed by acid copper plating is often done.

As for the need for buffing, that's a question of how bright you want it to be. After the nickel strike and before the copper plating you can do bright nickel plating as an alternative to buffing.

Regards,

A. Hi S. Virtually the same question is asked & answered earlier in this thread ... please review it! If you believe something is truly valuable or classic, it should be handled by a professional metal conservator though.

Luck & Regards,

A. Hi Barbara.
That's hard to say; steel can't be properly soldered, and we don't know the condition and thickness of any solderable plating on it. Brazing would work, but J-B Weld [affil link] is a very good brand of epoxy glue which will probably work, is a lot simpler, and something you can probably do yourself.
Luck & Regards,


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