Re: Cleaning Brass valves and fittings
Posted by:
Dick Vennerbeck (IP Logged)
Date: June 02, 2006 05:47AM
<HTML>Pat,
Get a gallon or two of ordinary vinegar, dilute it with a little hot water and throw in two handfulls of table salt. This will remove "patina" from parts that are clean of oul and grease. To clean the grease put them in a bucket over a fire with a cupful of automatic dishwasher soap. This soap is high in alkali and does a nice job. It will also work nicely to remove an oil film from the inside of a boiler. The vinegar salt solution will etch the brass very slightly and make them easy to polish.
You can also check "Brite" or "Bright" Dip on Google.
An environmental nightmare,Chromic Acid, will do a beautiful job too. (Reloaders used to use this to clean brass shells, but a little bit of it can stop a municipal sewage system in its tracks.)</HTML>