Cleaning Brasses

Last Thursday, after my trip to Minnesota, I brought into the shop a Hepplewhite-style serpentine front commode.  (I'll write more about it in another post.)  I spent Friday and Saturday cleaning and polishing the brasses (drawer handles and escutcheons) on the piece.  They were covered with decades of paste wax accumulation and tarnish.

Initial cleaning with a polishing cloth (I like Cape Cod Metal Polishing Cloths) wouldn't do the trick so I consulted the Internet.  As is so often the case, an old, simple method was the solution.  In this case literally so.  I soaked the pieces in a homemade solution of warm water, table salt and white vinegar.  Scrubbing with an an old tooth brush removed most of the wax buildup and a lot of the tarnish.  Changing the solution after a few pieces have been in it speeds up the process.  I soaked some overnight.  Here's what they looked like after that step.

I followed this up with the polishing cloth and the results were amazing.  I'm not sure if a picture can truly show the difference but here is the "after" version.

  The escutcheons, especially, had a lot of wax buildup and I used some mineral spirits to loosen up some of the wax that didn't come off in the solution.  If I was doing it again I might start with the mineral spirits, but the end result was great, easy (just a lot of elbow grease in the polishing stage), and very inexpensive.