One thing is undeniable in the DIY and design world, brass hardware is back and lately I’m totally loving it on furniture. As a child of the 80’s I admit shiny lacquered brass fixtures still don’t appeal to me, but I am drawn to the golden glow of real or antiqued brass with its warmer patina.
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In the past two weeks, I’ve fixed up two pieces, one dresser and one campaign desk, and both had brass hardware I wanted to reuse. One set of hardware was real brass, the other brass plate, and both needed a good polish.
Over the last year, I’ve also narrowed down two great substitutes for faking the patina with other hardware that you want to give a golden glow. If you’re curious how to tell the difference between real brass and brass plate, how to polish unlacquered brass, or how to fake the look of antique brass hardware, here’s how I do it.
Real brass is an alloy of copper and zinc and if it’s not lacquered, will tarnish with exposure to air over time. There are two methods I use to bring back the mellow antiqued patina, one is Brasso if I have it on hand and the other is natural lemon juice and salt paste mixture.
But first, before you polish, you should know whether your hardware is real brass or brass plate. Here’s the simple way to tell the difference. Take a household magnet and see if it will stick to the piece, if it won’t that means the hardware is real brass, like these campaign pulls.
However, if the magnet picks up the hardware, then it’s brass plated (with steel or iron as its base).
Good old fashioned Brasso works well for cleaning off the tarnish, and I usually soak for about 20 to 30 minutes.
With real brass, I use a rag or extra fine steel wool to remove the tarnish.
You can also use a mixture of salt and lemon juice as a natural polish, use approximately ¼ cup of salt per squeeze of ½ lemon to make a paste.
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Either one works great on either brass plate or real brass, just be sure to use a soft rag or soft toothbrush with brass plate and not steel wool, it can scratch the thin brass plating.
Lemon juice is acidic, so be sure to fully rinse and buff your brass hardware, and I’ve read that using a little olive oil on top will prolong the periods between polishing.
I find brass plated hardware is more stubborn for some reason and usually takes repeat soaks to bring it back to life but it can be done.
But if your brass plate doesn’t come back to life because it’s too corroded or you want to give it the patina of unlacquered brass, there are two products that will do just that.
Rub N’ Buff is a waxy metallic finish that comes in several golden shades such as Gold Leaf (depicted), but also look for Antique Gold and European Gold. Krylon’s ‘Gold Leaf’ is the best metallic gold spray paint I’ve found to date to mimic brass or give you a warm golden glow on your hardware.
As you can see, both the Rub n’ Buff and Gold Leaf spray paint are pretty darn close to the real thing!
What about you? Have you noticed the popularity of brass hardware on furniture lately? Are you liking its resurgence? Know any other natural formulas or products that are great for cleaning brass? Do share!
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To my eye, because the scratches look like they have a somewhat common orientation, it looks like either you have not completely removed the coarser scratches from some prior rougher grit stage during the progression. Or, sometimes if your polish applicator (cloth, paper towel, whatever) itself is somewhat abrasive, it can introduce new scratches during polishing. Or maybe you used the same polishing applicator/wheel/buff of the coarser grit on the finer grit?
A finishing technique I use is change direction with introduction of every new grit. Example, if you sanded radially with 600#, then switch to longitudinal on 800#, then radially again or completely different offset angle at #. You should only see uniform micro-striations of the finer grit with no underlying striations of the prior coarser grit. Vs. if you always do them in the same direction, then prior deeper scours which haven't been completely removed may be getting masked. This isn't always possible on all objects (especially round things where you are trying to keep dimensional conformance), but something to try & do if possible. Brass has nil porosity unless its a very weird alloy, so you should be able to get it to near mirror. Also some polishes have a wax or agent which is more like a thin gloss coating which enhances shine & tricks the eye a bit. As opposed to abrasive only polish. The wax/additive type makes the finish look better for sure, but the wax typically wears or evaporates over time. But that's a different issue.
I also know that photographing metal makes them look worse than in real life so you probably have a nice finish, just want it better.
I just finished a few pen kits & other Xmas objects myself for the first time. I was lurking on that IAP forum & got some good ideas. But I have discovered I do not like 'the brown stuff' on my metal lathe even with ways wrapped in Saran & vacuum on. So if I ever pursue this as a hobby I'd be on the lookout for something like a Taig or Sherline. A lot of guys use a wood lathes but typically not for mostly metal bodies. I don't really have the room or the desire for a separate lathe.
Lets see some more of your work, I'm interested!
Thanks for all the advice, I will try Peter T's method of different directions for different grits and see if I can get a better finish. When I started out, I was making pens out of copper which finishes and polishes beautifully but is a cast-iron bitch to machine. I would have to stop and resharpen bits often, especially when drilling out the interior. Then I started using brass which machines beautifully but is harder to finish, and electroplating it with copper. That is how I will continue, if I can get the fine scratches out. Electroplating doesn't cover up the fine scratches, they show right up in the copper and by then it's too late to get rid of them.
These aren't in any particular order, just various ones that I've made .
This was the first pen I sold, probably should have gotten much better before I started selling them, but a friend overseas saw them on my Facebook and wanted to buy a few. She bought this one for herself and bought another one to give to J.K. Rowling as a birthday present (we all lived in Portugal at the same time), apparently buying presents for billionaires is a difficult thing!
Experimenting with different finishes, this was a thin layer of spray lacquer, but it didn't hold up to daily use. I want to get away from using Cyanoacrylate glue (superglue) which most pen makers use as a finish because a lot of makers develop sensitivities to the chemicals.
This is an electroplated pen, showing how the fine scratches from the brass show through into the copper.
Rejects get adapted into suncatchers and Christmas Tree ornaments.
A copper blank showing the difference between unfinished and on the way to being finished.
My first pen in copper for my wife. I hit it utterly out of the park on my first try and haven't come close to this again. This has a CA Finish which still holds up.
This is J.K. Rowling's pen.
My first two pens with CA finish. I've been using CA as an adhesive for models for +30 years but never considered as a coating system. But after seeing so many examples I just had to try out of morbid curiosity. I think there are better finishes but its the rapid buildup of glue + accelerator. Doing a regular clear coat would take much longer.
I went to polish on Green too soon. The picture looks better than real life. I can still see the rolling hilltops of the glue lines that were not blocked down to the base of valleys. But I kind of messed up the wood diameter which was already proud of the pen body diameter & was getting concerned my CA application was too thin in that area so I stopped. On brown burl I applied more coats & blocked with 600# between coats & that helped. More thickness to work with & a better surface to start sanding. The trouble with pens is if you want to sand in a different direction to the rotation axis (longitudinally), you risk making facets which is even worse. What I find works best is a foam rubber pad backing with the right amount of flex. And as mentioned above, fine grit scuff pads have a nice way of conforming to surfaces.
aluminum model rocker covers with 600# scuff pads/wheel. I actually wanted more of a matte finish, just enough to blend out the prior hand filing/sanding. Some people use the scuff pads wet with water or WD-40 id loading is an issue. I know it works on copper but the issue is almost immediate oxide layer, so there may be some tricks to specific polishes.
I make pens in a Taig lathe, usually brass either left bright or electroplated copper. My question is about finishing and polishing brass. This is after 4 hours of using progressively finer grits of sandpaper, starting at 320 and ending at 12,000, followed by polishing with dialux yellow and blue. And I still have these fine lines. I want a mirror finish but at some point I wonder, are these lines just in the grain of the brass itself, or can I get rid of them? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
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I have a LOT of experience polishing brass and other metals to a mirror finish by hand.
4 hours is frikken insane time to bury in trying to get a decent polish! Something is very wrong in your set-up! It's either a wrong choice in methods, or materials. Maybe both.
I would suggest among other items worth pursuing, for your needs, is a MicroMesh Kit. https://www.aircraftspruce.ca/catalog/cspages/micromeshstd.php These are used for polishing aircraft wind screens and making them optically 'near' perfect. I have found that going much past grit is a waste, on most metals, unless you are trying to produce a truly flat, perfect, mirror finish! (hint, use a very flat, solid ( I used a lot of Acrylic sheet offcuts, because I had them), backing block as you sand that mirror face!) Past grit or so, you can get a great, near perfect finish, with a clean, soft cotton cloth or a lint-free towel and some metal polish (look for Solvol Autosol! my recommendation!) Clean carefully with soapy water between grits, and wipe off carefully! Use clean soapy water to lubricate the sandpaper (a couple drops of dish soap in a 500 ml squirt bottle is good!) when sanding.
But you should be able to get a lot closer than you have, using autobody grades of sandpaper (up to - grit usually available) used wet, with a little dish soap in the water, as well as some clean soft cotton cloth and metal polish. Same rules apply! Clean between grits!
Primary effort needs to be put in to removing ALL of the previous grit's marks before moving on, and paying close attention to keep from contaminating higher grit abrasives with lower grit particles! At first, you will likely have to step back in the process to restart it at a lower grit, but if you can pay enough attention to a project to work on it for four hours and still not be happy, I figure you have it in ya to spend 35 or so minutes and pay close attention, and get great results! It's a bit Art, and a Bit Science, but these are my experiences in doing what you are trying to!
FWIW, I would work in the same linear direction through all the grit ranges. I found that I had far fewer artifacts of previous work, showing up on the finished product. I did a LOT of this work, by hand, rather than under power and spinning, which would have been MUCH quicker!
Per your later posts, I would say that your problem is one of cross contamination, rather than of a problem with the metal. Consider whether your polishing papers are embedding particles into the work, that are ruining the later efforts! Suggest light pressures, and LOTS of cleaning between wet passes, of the various grits. I know that I never had any trouble getting to a near optically perfect surface, at far less a grit than you claim to be going to!