How to remove lacquer and shine raw brass

[Three Valves]

All I want are before and after pics of that bell!!

[bort2.0]

All I want are before and after pics of that bell!!

Will get "before" posted today.

[bort2.0]

Before... There's an engraving under there somewhere..

[KingTuba1241X]

Before... There's an engraving under there somewhere..

Take the tiger by the tail and good luck Brett...

[bloke]

I would estimate that if you drove down here, used my buffing machine with no experience (with it set on a slow speed with a small wheel - so you wouldn’t kill yourself, shot some lacquer on it (with no practice run), and then drove home, you would still spend less time than trying to polish it by hand, and – even with absolutely no experience (perhaps a little bit of supervision) – it would look better.

[donn]

Anyone tried a $20 drill attachment kit, like Ryobi contour?

[The Big Ben]

I have a raw brass peashooter BBb that I had stored in a locker that was kind of damp. It got really raunchy and I spent about an hour with Simichrome and a rag and really got nowhere. I got some compound with some guts- "3M Rubbing Compound" from the auto parts store along with some "3M Polishing Compound" which was a little finer. (I also got a bottle of 3M "Chrome Cleaner" which is used to clean spot rust off of chrome for the most stubborn parts. It's really rough and should be used with care.) I used one of those small buffers in Donn's post and was able to get most all of the rough crud off. After working it over for about an hour with the buffing wheel in a drill motor, I used spray cleaner to get all of the residue off and then picked up what I missed with a rag and one or both of the compounds. When I finished with that, the Simichrome and a rag and finally just a rag did the job. It took some time but was presentable.

If you could take up Bloke on his offer that would be great but, if you can't, some rougher compounds like I used and a little electric muscle would get it done.

[bloke]

The low speeds and low amounts of torque offered by hand drills (though pictures of such rigs appear alluring) have prompted me to only try that sort of thing a couple of times, and quite a few years ago.
I tend to use speeds around 3000 RPMs backed up by at least 2 hp with polishing wheels which are a minimum about 8 inches in diameter (an inch wide) which are sewn together to reinforce them. Tubas are huge, and even their lightest scratches are quite deep. Even with equipment as I’ve described, it takes a LONG time. With anything less, it would take (me) “forever“...
...and - just as with automobiles, lawnmowers, ladders, and any medications - the equipment that I use is dangerous.

[donn]

For those who like a dangerously powerful hand held tool, an angle grinder is pretty versatile. Mine's 4½ inches and runs at 12,000 rpm, which is within the advertised limit for these $4 flap disks.

[bloke]

yup...Those things can jump all over the place !

I bought a disposable one (because I knew I was going to be REALLY hard on it) from good ol' Harper Fruit, to grind tapers on to the ends of treated boards for a "horse" (no horses, but "horse-style") fence that Mrs. bloke and I built. Grinding down the ends of the boards was quicker than using a sophisticated floor-mounted saw - as we could do it on site (and without flopping 8' boards around on said machine) - and grinding subtle angles on the boards' ends "encouraged" the horizontals to follow the sharp curve along the border of the pasture.

I also have a "good" one of those...but would place neither anywhere near a musical instrument (at least, not one for which I would be considered "responsible", nor one which I own).

[donn]

What you're getting with that steel wool is a fine "brushed" finish, to my eye. Looks good, but from there, you'd be polishing off a fair amount of brass to go back to mirror smooth. Just guessing.

[bort2.0]

What you're getting with that steel wool is a fine "brushed" finish, to my eye. Looks good, but from there, you'd be polishing off a fair amount of brass to go back to mirror smooth. Just guessing.

It's a lousy photo... The goal has never actually been a mirror finish but rather just have a uniform finish. The old lacquer was streaky and spotty and kind of tarnished in places that looked really different from the yellow lacquer. So just a terrible look.

The work that I'm doing here actually doesn't seem to be brushing the brass very much or even at all. I can't stand the brushed metal look, and definitely do not want to attain that. This actually is giving a very smooth and uniform appearance. Actually looks no different where I've worked than than where the brass was already exposed, and shining that with brasso.

Brasso is NOT going to give a mirror finish here .. and if I want it to get shinier later I can follow some of the other suggestions above for buffing. But for now, this seems to be a pretty good method for getting a uniform appearance and removing the bad old finish.

Side note... This tuba is very heavy. Wouldn't it be a good candidate to buff the crap out of it to make a little bit lighter? (Not serious about that!)

[bloke]

2000-or-considerably-finer-grit sandpaper (with lamp oil) might contribute to diminishing the steel wool scratches...

AutoZone (surely, only blocks from your home) has that stuff...
In Minn., I would probably stop by in the morning - on the way to work, and no other time of day...but that's just me-just-preferring-to-die-not-at-a-time-of-someone's-else-choosing, speaking.

[bort2.0]

2000-or-considerably-finer-grit sandpaper (with lamp oil) might contribute to diminishing the steel wool scratches...

AutoZone (surely, only blocks from your home) has that stuff...
In Minn., I would probably stop by in the morning - on the way to work, and no other time of day...but that's just me-just-preferring-to-die-not-at-a-time-of-someone's-else-choosing, speaking.

Really appreciate all the help and input! Again, my stated goal here is to just make it "look better." Or maybe to look "better." Because if I do too much, or get too many expectations, then I'll have to start dealing with dents. And at that point, I need to question the time and $ invested in the tuba. But for now, we're still coming out on top.

Just held the tuba in the sunlight. I'll try some buffing of some sort to see where that gets it. But I'm quite satisfied with the current "better" compared to the starting point.

AutoZone... I mean, we HAD an AutoZone...?

[bloke]

yeah...I'm reporting your post.
No one authorized the creation of those photographs.

[KingTuba1241X]

yeah...I'm reporting your post.
No one authorized the creation of those photographs.

It looks like a mostly peaceful AutoZone, even on fire. That's unless Brett didn't cover himself in lamp oil and wear the 2000 grit on his head and walk in there demanding help, that's how fires break out.

[bort2.0]

yeah...I'm reporting your post.
No one authorized the creation of those photographs.

It looks like a mostly peaceful AutoZone, even on fire. That's unless Brett didn't cover himself in lamp oil and wear the 2000 grit on his head and walk in there demanding help, that's how fires break out.

Clearly!

[bloke]

' looks like "justice", to me...
People that needed their cars fixed, now can't...THAT'LL FIX 'EM !!! (actually, it won't.)

[donn]

Since I think I can be reasonably confident no one will do this, I will reveal how I obtained the forbidden methylene chloride, a.k.a. aircraft stripper. And why - to wit, I needed to repair a piece of plastic, for which I knew it's a good solvent. I ordered it from a laboratory supply place. It worked very well.