Cleaning up brass (?) door handles

blizeH

Hey guys,

Got a load of door handles in my house that need sorting, my original plan was to switch to silver, but it's an awkward fit, needs a lot of messing about (handles, hinges and latches) and frankly doesn't look as nice as I was hoping, on the door I tested silver on.

So anyway! I've got some pics - they're covered in paint for the most part, so anything to help get that off (I tried a scraper thing, but just ended up scratching it, no matter how careful I was) - and also they're quite scratched in general.

Soo, umm yeah:

1. How do I get the paint off?
2. Is there anyway to lessen the scratches (tried wired wool to no effect!)



Cheers

foreign_correspondent

I would say nitromors to get rid of the paint, then polish with some sort of cutting paste - astonish or car stuff. They are probably varnished now to stop them tarnishing, so you could either re-varnish, or just go over them with brasso occasionally

jcb208

Chuck them in a bucket of hot soapy water for an hour this will soften the paint enough to scrape off with finger nails or blunt instrument then just use braso to polish them up and may be spray a coat of thin laquer to stop them tarnishing again

Barneysmom

Use a green scrubby to get the paint off, and lemon juice is good for cleaning brass. I doubt you'll get all the scratches out though, nobody will notice them only you.

ormus

HP sauce is a good cleaner for real brass.
a lot of brass these days is the cheap chinese stuff. its not the same stuff as real brass.

i clean paint off with a stanley blade. carefully.

blizeH

Thanks so much for the awesome suggestions guys, tried a few things and ims soaking them in soapy water worked a treat for getting the paint off! Metal polish wasn't so successful for the scratches, but I haven't given up yet, will try some other things, cheers

tanith

Some of these modern brass handles have a coating on them to keep them shiny and are not meant to be polished and once you have scraped off that coating by rubbing down or polishing they never look good again no matter what you do because they aren't solid brass and you have scrapped off the brass coating along with the protective coat.. and the metal underneath shows through

blizeH

I think that's what has happened to these, god knows what to do with them tbh, like I said I almost changed all of them but that's going to be super time consuming since I can't even find handles exactly the same - let alone the hinges and latches

Craftyscholar

tanith wrote: »

Some of these modern brass handles have a coating on them to keep them shiny and are not meant to be polished and once you have scraped off that coating by rubbing down or polishing they never look good again no matter what you do because they aren't solid brass and you have scrapped off the brass coating along with the protective coat.. and the metal underneath shows through

Found that out the hard way Mainly because the coating on the front door ones got 'weathered'.
They are OK for indoors.
Anyone know where you can get better ones for outdoor use (that don't cost a small fortune)?

dander

You should be able to change the handles without changing hinges and latches - all it relies on is the bar that goes through the door and that shouldn't be any different, so you don't have to get something the same. Much more expensive than cleaning the old ones up of course!

blizeH

Yeah I know cheers, I tried with some identical looking ones - but the screw holes were in different places, noooooooooooo!