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 links] and then apply wax [affil links] 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 [on eBay or Amazon] will take a long time, but something more powerful like Barkeeper's Friend liquid soft cleanser [on eBay or Amazon] 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 [on eBay or Amazon], but there are many good products.

A. Hi Kathy. Not to be facetious, but you either invest years in becoming an expert on the subject, or you retain an expert who has already done so ... or you ask for a certificate of authenticity that maybe you can trust but maybe you can't ... or you take a chance. There is simply no way for an amateur to tell from examination, let alone a photo, whether artwork is original -- a forger would always put more knowledge, skill, and effort into determining those clues than amateurs would and would always be a step ahead of you anyway. Sorry :-(

But it may not be that important, since it seems that some C. Jere stuff is beautiful, and some not so much. And the majority of it apparently made by apprentices. So if it's beautiful, that's probably what matters.

Regards,

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 [on eBay or Amazon] will probably help deter corrosion, but keep it under climate control, not in an entry foyer or porch. Good luck.

Regards,

A. Hi
I don't have the history or inside knowledge to know what metal finishing processes C. Jere used. All I can comment on is the results related to me and a general knowledge of potential finishing methods.

People should be aware that human skin and metal are very different. Vinegar is a safe, mild, cleaner as far as people are concerned but it can be an aggressive acid as far as some metals are concerned; if you add table salt it's a very aggressive acid unsuited to most artwork and its fine detail. But vinegar + baking soda = nothing ... the baking soda neutralizes the vinegar.

There are four common ways for stuff like this to have a brass look.
• The first is to make it out of solid brass -- which doesn't seem to be the case.
• The second is to make it out of steel and do brass electroplating (or copper plating then brass plating) directly on the steel -- the underlying steel would not be bright and silvery if this were the case.
• The third way is to do bright nickel electroplating on the item and follow it with brass electroplating. Brass tarnishes quickly, so usually this would be followed by brass lacquer or other clearcoat. Where the brass and lacquer are worn away by cleaning and polishing, the nickel plating would be bright and shiny.
• The fourth is to do bright nickel plating on the item, and then simply use a brass-colored lacquer instead of brass plating and lacquer.

I suspect that the finish is either type three or four and that the best path forward is to, after cleaning, apply a brass lacquer of suitable color. G.J. Nikolas [a finishing.com supporting advertiser] offers lacquers in various colors for industrial use but I am not sure if the product is suitable for sale to the public.
Luck & Regards,


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

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 [in bulk on eBay or Amazon], battery acid [affil links] 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 [on eBay or Amazon] tarnish deterrent, and then lacquer it (or you can use a brass lacquer that contains the benzotriazole like Incralac [on eBay or Amazon] or Permalac [adv: Permalac on eBay]). 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 Steve. If the signature is engraved in metal it is certainly possible to remove the paint without affecting the metal. turpentine [on eBay or Amazon] or mineral spirits [on eBay or Amazon] , will not to my knowledge hurt metal. And the super-stripper, highly toxic methylene chloride (aircraft stripper), will all remove paint without affecting metal (it's even used on airliners).

But if you're talking about paint of a different color applied over the same type of paint, chemistry unfortunately abides by its own chemical laws, not to our desires ... so it's probably impossible to find a solvent that will follow our wishes of removing the paint we wish to be removed without removing paint that we want to remain :-(

Luck & 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 links] is a very good brand of epoxy glue [on eBay or Amazon] 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