Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Shop Talk Petroliana Forums General Petroliana Discussion Refurbishing Wayne 40 Brass Face Plates

From Good Housekeeping....

"squirt a dollop of ketchup on a rag, and rub over surface. Wipe off residue with a damp cloth and buff dry. For a homemade cleaner, dissolve 1 teaspoon salt in 1/2 cup vinegar and add enough flour to make a paste. Rub onto the brass and leave for 10 minutes; rinse and buff dry."

Kevin, I can't remember. Did you serve in the military? If so remember what Brasso did to your "brass". All service members I have ever met, have complained about how fast their brass tarnished after using Brasso the first time. Brasso works by "stripping" the surface, to get the shine. Once it strips, air and oils start the process towards tarnish and patina. During the mid 70's the commercials for "Tarn-off" or something like that was all over the tv. One of the guys in my unit bought a bottle and soaked his brass. Man, was it shiny, for about 3 days. After 3 days, the "stuff" tarnished his brass so bad he had to make a run to the PX and buy all brand new brass, including all insignia and buckles.

U.S. NAVY has to be the largest user of Brasso.
Brass is constantly being polished with it.

Neverdull leaves a coating to deter oxidation.
Is there not a big enough demand for these faces to have them reproduced? Even if they were expensive? Did they show as brass when new or were they possibly nickle plated at one time?

I spent 2 years in the US Army and was never really impressed with Brasso but it was all we had! Too many hours rubbing the stuff on, every week for inspections!!
I ordered something off the net tonite, called Red Bear copper and brass polish. Anyone ever used it?? I think I'm going to call a couple of plating experts too, to see what they have to say! This is turning into something very educational and I hope, I'm able to use the information in the future!! Thanks guys and if anyone else has some thoughts, fire away!----KEVIN

I had to clean up some plasma-arc consumables recently, vinegar, ketchup, hot sauce with or without salt didn't work, I did use some HVAC coil cleaner to get it clean. now how it would be on your brass??? brass has many different alloys so try it on the back side 1st. tt

I've got a set of these brass faces also off of my 40. Never did find anything that would not wipe the lettering off. I just set them aside and bought some nice repos which look surprisingly good. Kent.

Machine buffing will work, just don't stay on the embossed sections too long. You have to know how to do it to make them pretty so if you're not experienced, don't try it.

It does not make sense for the faces to have been bare brass.
Water would have tarnished them quickly if not coated.
There were a lot of exterior parts for pumps made of brass but were plated.
I guess folks associate brass w/ being old/antique since everthing past 1970 was made of plastic or other cheaper materials.

There are some computers that have brass blinder/shutters, but they were always plated at one time, just about every brass part on a VEEDER ROOT was plated at one time.
I would be interested to see..... if the lettering still has it's color,, is there plating below it?

Have Dawn at Big Cheeses take a crack at them.

My first suggestion to him, was to consult her.

...has anyone tried these?

http://www.metalbrite.net/

...I think you're going to have to clear the things after you remove the tarnish and repaint the raised letters, to keep them from becoming tarnished again...

Joe--Most of the lettering still has its color but wherever its gone, you can see that it was plated underneath. I did call Dawn Hubert and had a long conversation with her about how these should be restored. She was very knowledgable and helpful to me.
I had another Old Gasser contact me and direct me to a gentleman in Minnestoa that has been in the metal restoration business for 20 years and is very familiar with the many different platings on these type of metals. He seemed very confident that he could clean and polish these faces to whatever condition that I desired with no damage to the lettering at all.
Long and short of it, I felt confident enough after talking with him yesterday, that I packaged them up and sent them his way! I'm unsure as to turnaround time, but I will be sure to keep all of you posted on how this turns out!
I want to thank everyone for their insights and advice! Thanks----KEVIN

oooooo
just imagine a nice straight set chromed and the letters blacked...
sexy

Well if you are going to leave them polished brass/copper...whatever it is,....
white background wheels? or black?
What say the JURY???????