Cleaning brass / removing corrosion

[eric343]

How do I remove weathering, corrosion, and tarnishing from the brass locks in my collection? Isopropyl alcohol and acetone (nail polish remover) do little, if at all.

[maxxed]

Try a product called " Brasso " .

[zeke79]

For rifle cartridge brass I use kaboom cleaner from wal-mart in the general cleaning section. Just spray it on, let sit for a minute then wipe clean. Neutralize with alcohol afterward. Works great on cases as they look new when done, but I have not tried on locks yet.

[conker]

yeah there are a lot of different products. Theres something that uses limes in the product, and others that use mainly chemicals. Most of them just have an acid in them, so it dissolves whatever corrosion there is.
I was going to suggest gun cleaning products, but that was alrady mentioned. Good job.

[bprzybyl]

I second Brasso. I first used it when I made the green jewel on my xbox clear. Not only did it take off the green backing, but I then used it to get rid of a small scratch on the top. worked really well. A couple weeks ago I decided to clean and lube all my practice locks (5 deadbolts, about 15 years old, varying from very weathered to not much at all). After it was done, you wouldn't know which ones were which, they all shined like new! All I did was take a paper towel (they recommend cotton, which I used on the plastic jewel, but I didn't wanna waste another washcloth), put some brasso on it, and then scrubbed the outside of the plug and inside of the shell. I then covered a q-tip in brasso and cleaned out the pin chambers. Finally, with a little brasso on the paper towel again, I cleaned the pins. If the finish doesn't just magically turn into perfect, try letting the brasso sit on there for a minute, then scrub off. Once your done brasso-ing, lube it up. There's plenty of info on that here on the site, but I used some lock-aide I found. I haven't had any problems with any of them yet.

[Shrub]

Brason also needs some elbow grease adding and you make the object smaller,

For a dip in solution that shuld clean mose stuff off brass you can use a solution of 4 parts ammonia 1 part water and a egg cup full of washing up liquid, mix it together in a bucket and put a lid on it over night, tarnished, dull, corroded etc brass will come out shining in the morning.

[digital_blue]

What, precisely, is "washing up liquid", for those of us on this side of the pond? Are we talking about Dish Soap? Laundry Soap? Floor Cleaner? Wetnaps? Help a brother out here.

db