Article Source: wikiHow
Older homes often have brass heating vent covers, window handles and locks, and door knobs that have been covered with paint. Here is a simple way to reveal your antique treasures and let them shine.
Steps
- Remove the painted brass fixtures from the door or window.
- Place a few fixtures at a time in an old pan that you don’t care about. [The pan should not be aluminum. Porcelain or stainless steel or glass are really the only acceptable materials. Aluminum will react in unpredicatble ways with vinegar and brass.] Place the pan on a burner of your stove or on an electric burner or hot plate that you can plug in outdoors or in a well vented garage.
- Pour white vinegar into the pan until it covers the painted objects.
- Turn the burner on and bring the vinegar to a slow boil, then turn to a simmer. The paint will begin to soften and separate after a few minutes. Do not boil pieces that are not solid brass for long periods; the vinegar will begin to dissolve the brass plating on areas that have been thinned by use, i.e. sash pulls (window handles).
- Remove one of the pieces with tongs and place on newspaper.
- Wearing heavy rubber gloves and using 002 steel wool, rub off the peeling paint. Use bamboo skewers, toothpicks or a wire brush to get into any difficult crevices.
- Continue wiping with 000 steel wool until paint is gone.
- Repeat for remaining fixtures, adding more fixtures to the pot as you go to prevent ‘over cooking’.
- Polish the fixtures with Brasso, if needed.
Tips
- Do this on a day when you can open the windows and turn on a fan. The smell of the simmering vinegar can be overpowering and seep into your hair and clothes.
- For large fixtures such as vent covers, use an inexpensive roasting pan.
Warnings
- Fixtures will be hot when removed from boiling vinegar – make sure you are wearing heavy protective gloves.
- Do not reuse pot or pan for cooking, no matter how well you clean it. Old paint has a high chance of containing lead. Lead is poisonus and can cause brain damage in children and reproductive harm to adults.
- It is not advisable to use this technique on screws. Most brass screws are not solid brass, but thinly plated. They will lose every trace of brass within minutes.
Article Source: wikiHow