If you want to age your brass wholly and quickly, try a commercial brass antiquing method. Home remedies can only get you so far before you need to break out the big guns. When you open the top the next day, the brass should be a deep brown. Place your brass pieces on the blocks, being careful not to let them touch the ammonia.Ĭlose the lid, and let the pieces sit overnight. The tops of the blocks should be above the liquid. Place the wood blocks on the bottom of the container, and add the ammonia. You’ll need a bit of patience when you use this method, but it’s completely safe and won’t harm your shiny brass items during a brass makeover. Harness that power to create custom-aged brass hardware in just a few days. Good old salt water is one of the best oxidizers out there, which is why metal exposed to salt water rusts or tarnishes so quickly. And, they won’t damage the metal pieces or eat through the brass layer to expose the underlying metal if you’re working with brass plate. These recipes take a bit longer than commercial products, but you can use them without worrying about your family’s safety. In this section, you’ll learn about home remedies you can use to antique your brass.
Having a few brass antiquing options that use household products is a significant first step when you want to age your brass. When you age metals, it’s best to try the safest and lowest-impact methods first before moving on to stronger options. Now that your brass is clean and lacquer-free, it’s time to start the antiquing process. Solid brass can tolerate the stronger antiquing methods, but be careful with plated brass and only use gentle aging methods such as a vinegar wash. The easiest way to tell whether you have a brass plate or not is to use a magnet.īrass is not magnetic, so if you place a magnet against a piece of brass and it sticks, you’ve got a brass finish on your hands. You should always check whether you’re working with solid metal or brass plating before you start antiquing brass, as plating requires gentler methods than solid pieces. You’ll often find brass plating covering zinc or other metals to add a touch of warm color to metal fittings.
Check Whether Your Brass is Solid or Plateīrass is a popular alloy and comes in solid and plate form. Clean off any lacquer with nail polish remover or paint stripper and steel wool. Remove the clean brass with tongs and allow items to cool, then use the toothbrush and more hot water to clean out any crevices. Place your brass pulls and other pieces in the boiling water, and let them sit for at least ten minutes.
Follow this easy process to clean brass before antiquing. You’ll use this same method to prepare brass for refinishing. Manufacturers polish brass and then protect it against tarnish by applying one or more coats of clear lacquer, and you’ll need to clean off both the finish and any dirt and grime from your new brass pieces before you can tarnish them. Your number one task will be to get your brass cleaned and ready to go through the aging process so that you can age it correctly and so that it will last. Clean the Brassīefore antiquing brass, you need to know the best way to clean brass first.
Brass darkening how to#
We show you how to determine whether you’re working with solid brass or plating, and you’ll also get our best methods for cleaning dirt, grime, verdigris, and lacquer off of your brass pieces before you tarnish them.
This section walks you through the brass preparation process to get ready for tarnishing. Before you can create tarnish, though, you need to know how to prepare brass. You can cause tarnish to develop by forcing your brass fixtures to oxidize through various methods. Tarnish arrests oxidation and prevents further decay. Raw brass oxidizes in a hurry, and this process causes tarnish to develop. In order to know the best way to tarnish brass, we first need to look at what tarnish is, and how it works and forms. Making brass look old is not a difficult process but there are some steps to follow to make sure you do it correctly. Age Your Brass with Paint The Best Ways to Antique Brass Properly.Check Whether Your Brass is Solid or Plate.The Best Ways to Antique Brass Properly.
0 kommentar(er)
