As part of the re-finishing wood on the handrails on my GB I was faced with either cleaning the brass hardware fittings or buying new. I discovered that Grand Banks sells new ones that are stainless steel. I choose to clean the existing brass ones to keep the original "look":
The left side of the photo shows how tarnished the brass was. It took a few hours and lots of elbow grease to clean them. Here are my tools for the job:
I have a vice that is designed to be attached to a drill press, which I can place anywhere and hold parts well, which was a big help for cleaning. Not shown is 0000 extra fine steel wool. I used steel wool to polish with the Weiman cleaner instead of rubbing with a cloth. I tried several brass cleaning products and found the Weiman product to be the best. I also tried "cooking" parts in vinegar, which did remove lots of tarnish, but left a difficult to remove copper color.
My process was to rub with the steel wool/cleaner, buff with a towel, and then use clean steel wool to polish the dry surface to a nice brillance.
This took lots of time and work, but the results are marvelous!
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