This post is all about cleaning up the nasty looking badge I removed from Ms. Rusty. Initially I cleaned it up using the usual kerosene but it didn’t do much to improve the appearance. I then purchased some metal polish, specifically Eagle One Nevr-Dull because it is supposed to work well on all metals. One a side note – I wonder why all these automotive type agents have hyphens in their brand names? (Evapo-Rust, Break-Away, Nevr-Dull, WD-40, etc.) Is it a requirement that I don’t know about?
Using the Nevr-dull improved things a little bit, but the badge still didn’t look very good and this new product was taking more elbow grease than I’d like. So I searched online for ways to clean tarnished brass. Several different recipes of salt/vinegar combinations came up in my Google search, but my favorite “remedy” was to use ketchup!
So, I took the badge and soaked it in a dish of ketchup overnight.
After rinsing the badge it actually looks pretty good!
Front 
It was after the ketchup treatment that the Nevr-Dull really showed it’s stuff. I spent about 10-15 minutes polishing the badge and it looks much better.
Front 
Now the badge isn’t perfect, so it will need a bit of tinkering to get it bent back into the correct shape around the edges. I also need to spend some extra time to get the tarnish out of the crevices on the back. Hopefully I can figure out how to do that, and get it done, by the time Ms. Rusty is ready for her “new” badge.
You could try using a Dremel tool with one of those pointy buffers attached to get rid of the tarnish on the back in the ditches.
ReplyDeleteGreat idea! I'm going to try that :)
ReplyDeleteI knew about ketsup, but, I'd have never thought about using the other cleaner/shiner after the ketsup. Nicely done.
ReplyDeleteketchup! who knew?
ReplyDeleteKetchup to the rescue, again! Like Cheryl, I never would have thought of polishing after. :D
ReplyDelete