Copper Restoration - the dainty stuff....HELP

Try dipping the piece into proprietary cola drink.

Tricky...

It depends what you mean by 'clean'...

If you mean shiny bright copper, this isn't a natural state as it tarnishes, this state can only be achieved with harsh abrasives or chemicals and maintained with some sort of coating/varnish.

If it is cleaned back to bright metal it will rapidly tarnish and may look worse than it does now....

Sorry, not much help....

Thanks Guys, I realize it's hard to describe without proper pictures, so it may be a short throw out to you all...

The Patina just doesn't look right....it's real heavy & very dark green appearance seems to come from it sitting around, who knows where, and with dust, dirt, etc. it has turned slight putrid-looking...

I've done some searching and found some homemade suggestions...

My goal is to get this brought out to shine & then let it naturally go back to the light green patina we are familiar with..

You all take care & thanks again...let's let this thing rest & wish me luck, so my partner doesn't offer me a lump on the head

Think whether this artifact should be cleaned. Often 'restoration' devalues things, removing history. someone near us is 'restoring' and old farm house my wife and I have long coveted. According to local lore the restoration budget must be at least the price they've paid for the land and buildings. You can't 'restore' the character and history back into anything.

A well known collector bought a rare old car from my father thirty years ago, we'd been it's second owners and it was somewhat worn. What did he do? Overhaul the brakes and suspension so that it was once more a thrill to drive?

No, painted it a lurid purple and ripped out the original upholstery and woodwork replacing it with something more to his taste. Mechanically it remained undriveable.

I use 'Kleen King' for preparing my circuit boards for etching. The label doesn't say, but I have the impression that it contains oxalic acid to remove oxides. You might try your local high school or college chemistry dept. for a small amount of oxalic acid...

Now I've never tried it, but I've heard that Ketchup (or however you wish to spell it) does a remarkable job...

Dick

The cleanser "Zud" contains oxalic acid. I think it is still available.

Thanks DK - I saw that online, gonna save it as I may need it.....

If you get really desperate you can try muriatic acid from the hardware store. You might want to dilute it even more than it is 10% HCl/90% water as purchased.

I use it as the last cleaning before hard chrome plating brass/copper/bronze followed by a water rinse in some of my projects. At 10% its pretty aggressive for cleaning but doesn't appear to touch the base metal as long as I don't let it sit and etch. I only dip my parts for 1-2 minutes. I've left it as long as 1/2 hour and not been able to see or measure any base metal removal. (it does a very nice etch on steel parts)

Are you sure that the coloration inside and out are not deliberate? If they are as hard as you say I am wondering if it might be a ceramic coating of some sort.

Scooter

I concur, as long as it gets neuralized thouroughly before being put back on the shelf.

some mention here.

www.museums.state.ak.us/documents/wise_guide.pdf

Hello CUTiger, My boyfriend is an avid coin collector, he has learned that he could use olive oil from the supermarket, he will take a soft bristle tooth brush and a lil cup put the coins in in the cup then pour the oo on top of it. He takes the brush goes over each coin one time, gets off what he can, then puts the ones back he had trouble with soaks them again ect... Pennies are the ones he has the most trouble with(copper). Hope this helps. He found this info online when he was looking up the value of coins. Cindy Newtron

Probably best to choose a lower grade, not a virgin pressing of olive oil as I think it is more acidic.

Clarification: the lower grade of olive oil is more acidic.

Many Thanks Cindy, and also to all who tried to help....going to give it a go this weekend & maybe upload some pics - good or bad - to let you all know how this thing turns out..

Your welcome CUTiger, I also have a Friend who has owned his own coin shop shop for over 25 years, I went to talk to him about almost the same thing. I was advised not to clean it to much just stop at the point where it looked nice and once in awhile whipe it down with OO. He was putting a $10,000 dollar bill in a flat glass display unit to protect it. I said "thats fake isn't it"? "NO" was his answer. He paid $350.00 for it. He said it was the 2nd one he had ever seen. WOW!!!!!! Happy Cleaning... Cindy

The first suggestion was correct, Coke contains food grade Phosphoric Acid

Allow to soak overnight wash in soapy water and polish with a clean dry cloth .

Denem or soft canvas.

HP sauce always worked on coins when I was a 'nipper'. What is HP sauce you might well ask? A filthy limey concoction with a lot of acetic acid in it (is my guess).

Absolutely correct. It works just as well as non-limey colas.

Ha... perhaps Lime juice would work !

Probably, might be a tad agressive though. Just realised, in the course of the house refurbishment we've just been doing, we tried cleaning the loo seat hinges which looked like brass by dunking them in vinegar over night. Mrs W was horrified when she saw the result. 'They're ruined, looks like they were plated and you've stripped it all off'. In fact they'd really cleaned up well but for some reason they were left copper coloured, not brass. It was as if the etching had somehow favoured one or other of the ingredients of the brass. A whizz on the polishing mop brought a lovely instant brassy colour up. Any ideas what caused the copper colour to be som dominant?

Wrenched:

"It was as if the etching had somehow favoured one or other of the ingredients of the brass."

Right. The brass is copper and zinc and I'd expect the zinc to be more reactive with the vinegar, leaving a copper surface.

DickL

Thanks DickL, that's something I've learnt this week! I must tell Mrs W!

HP sauce works much better than colas on steak though.

Bill

My wife insists on keeping our copper clad pots and pans shiny using some stuff called "Twinkle." It's usually in with the kitchen cleaners in our supermarket.

It seems to be a mild phosphoric acid dilution with a fine abrasive. It's a higher concentration of acid than Coke. It will tingle if you have a cut on a finer. I would avoid rubbing because of the abrasive if the detailing on the piece is very fine, but the stuff is more of a polish grade abrasive. If you are going to rub make sure you're using a polishing pattern and lots of water. I can elaborate on that if you want me to.

I've found this stuff will take a really nasty tarnish off the pans but it will take some time.

Greetings & many thanks Yusef - I"M GOING IN!!! wish me luck

Let me know how it works.

well its monday, inquiring minds want to know, how did it go?

Will we be seeing pictures?

Scooter

mmmm gonna have to remember that one ....!!

maybe a very dilute sulfuric ...... if its tin with copper plating however, maybe not. Might strip the copper coating ... no telling how thick it was or how far its degraded or how pure it was to begin with ...... odd though ornamental copper hasn't been done in a long time. Might want to have it appraised and evaluated before you do anything. If its truly old or unique might be a good idea to leave it be.

If the chemicals aren't touching the corrosion, you may have a coat of lacquer or varnish on it. Try some acetone or paint remover. Then see if the chemicals won't work.

Hello & very sorry for the late reply to all your helpful comments....(we had a death in the family)

But on to the outcome with a little background..

My Wife thought when she bought this, she had a steal & saved many $$$...

So onward - I got off the very thick, green coatings which must've been lacquer, with thinners, requiring much time & material - stuff was thick everywhere, but it came out nice.

Then on to the copper plating - and PLATING is the key word here....

started out on all open surfaces with non-abrasive cleaners & terry cloths - worked fine everywhere...

Then it came time to clean all the scrolling & filials...

Started out with more cleaner & used a new toothbrush with rubber bristles - no good

The used a different brush with firmer bristles - no good

Well, had to think about something with power....pulled out the Dremel, and put on some smell, fine polishing cloth wheels to see if this would work...(also remember that I made every effort not to up-the-RPM's or to apply pressure)

It had some effect, but after a very brief period of time, and I mean brief, the doggone TIN started to peek through... this stuff was junk! the PLATING must've been only something like .0005 thick? (well, maybe close) Oh Well, that's why there are no pictures...

We thought we had a diamond in the rough, but at least we tried....

Now on to more things with good thought & well wishes! Take care......

About what I expected. It could still be copper plated, and then nickeled, or silvered if you desired.

There is a LOT of silver plate "out there", and I silver a lot of it. Makes me a buck or two, but it is hard to sell a re-silvered piece at auction...it is usually a job I do for a person who really likes the piece and has some personal attachment to it.

How can a re-silvered object be told from an original, apart from it's clean, bright, shiny appearance.?

Does a re-silvered object look the sam,e as a counterfeit object, made recently, hence the aversion?

Re-silvered pieces tend to look "re-silvered". Characteristics of re-silvered pieces include "muddy" engraving (you don't drag out the silver from the engraving...and subsequent plating will fill the engraving), and perversely enough, the plateing will not fill scratches, dents, frosting, gouges or anything it might be nice to fill! So you either polish the piece as nice as the original, and thereby polishing the engraving away as well, and round off any other sharp details, or you plate it, dings and history and all! Re-silvered pieces often have an uneven shine as a result, sometimes a bit frosty, and of course, you always risk the delamination of the new plating from the old.

Thats only a few of the ways a re-plated piece is not as good as an untouched original, and is why re-plated pieces are usually much less value. Also much less costly to buy...and people who value price over quality snap up the re-plated pieces pretty quick from the cut rate platers. (like me...grin!) I have done some real nice pieces, and the same day, with the same solutions, I have done some real dogs. Sometimes, it just doesn't work. Sometimes it works a treat.

(insert Gallic shrug here)

I just figured in this case that this piece would be a good candidate for learning how to plate copper and silver...its not like he can lower the value any more with his efforts.

Oh, and chances are it is not tin plate. A magnet would tell for sure, of course. It is more likely "speculum metal" (an alloy of brass) or zinc. Legs (of plates and bowls) are often zinc, and applied decoration is usually lead, soldered on with non-eutectic tin-lead alloy. All will plate with copper really nicely.

Sometimes re-plating is all you can do to bring the object back into service. When I "do" the swords for the ceremonial guards in Ottawa, they have to look as much as possible like brand new. This means polishing all scratches away, deepening any engraving, and plating as best as can be done. I have shown all the steps in this process on my blog....

http://southtowerarmouringguild.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_archive.html

That blog documents the process of taking a sword from "crap" to "gorgeous". It also illustrates everything you want to know about doing this job. And shows incidently why I charge as much as I do!

I have detailed the process of plating on my blog.

http://southtowerarmouringguild.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_archive.html

Drop in and let me know what you think.

have a look also at this page:

http://www.copper.org/resources/properties/protection/green.html

S