Cleaning "shiny metal bits!"

Floozie

Help!

Can anyone help with this problems I seem to have when cleaning around the house. When I clean metal parts of items such as the hinges on the toilet seat, the handles on kitchen doors and kitchen drawer units I use a mixture of vinegar and water but every time it seems to make the surface worse and it changes from a shiny colour to a horrible mottled appearance.
What am I doing wrong - am I using the wrong cleaner?
Any advice greatly appreciated.

GreyQueen

Floozie wrote: »

Help!

Can anyone help with this problems I seem to have when cleaning around the house. When I clean metal parts of items such as the hinges on the toilet seat, the handles on kitchen doors and kitchen drawer units I use a mixture of vinegar and water but every time it seems to make the surface worse and it changes from a shiny colour to a horrible mottled appearance.
What am I doing wrong - am I using the wrong cleaner?
Any advice greatly appreciated.

Morning.

Vinegar is dilute acetic acid. Household vinegars shouldn't be above a 5% concentration and I'm guessing that you're not using it neat from the bottle but diluting it further? It's still not suitable for metal as it's strong enough to clean silver, copper and brass, which means it can dissolve tarnish (oxidisation of the surface of the metal). I think the mottling you're describing is the surface being damaged by the acetic acid.

You can safely clean just about anything with hot soapy water and it should be suitable for all metals (even gold!). Beyond that, if you want to achieve shininess, buy a metal cleaner marketed as suitable for that particular metal. HTH.

suki1964

I just use a microfibre cloth, polishes up everything beautifully

pigpen

I use a toothbrush to get manky bits off.. then wipe with Cif actifizz and a microfiber cloth.. or just washing up liquid and water.

ancientofdays

I use dettol spray on the loo

meritaten

I second not to use vinegar on 'metal' bits. might be worth investing in a tin of Silvo or suchlike to bring them back to good condition?
and then for ordinary cleaning I just use a soapy detergent (or even shampoo in the bathroom if I forget to take stuff up) and rinse it off well.