Polishing Trunk Brass And Metal Parts

This has to be the most mundane, monotonous, boring task I have ever undertook ! I now have two things I hate in life, cleaning dishes and cleaning brass.  So I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is everyone seems to want brass work on their trunk and that appears to be what I have. The bad news is cleaning extremely corroded, and tarnished brass absolutely sucks for lack of a better word.

So I got about ten minutes and a quarter beer into the project and realized the steel wool I purchased was too fine. I got a zero grade steel wool and that just wasn't cutting through the tarnish, grime and corrosion. I stopped what I was doing, went down to the hardware store and finally spent some money. I purchased some dust masks $2.97, Brasso brass cleaner $3.49, some number 4 steel wool $2.59, and some number 0 steel wool $2.59.

What I used to clean the brass work on the steam trunk.

I returned home, selected some music that would motivate me, some upbeat funky breaks and began attacking the brass work with a ferocious attitude. The process I found most successful was to apply a dime size dollop of brass cleaner to the number 4 steel wool and then rub the heck out of the part. I tried to be as careful as possible not to get the brass cleaner on the leather trim, and ugly pink painted canvas. For this reason I'm glad I decided not to remove it and expose the natural wood. I then took a piece of number 0 steel wool and removed the coarseness of the number 4 steel wool.It's hard to tell from the pictures but it really made a huge difference.

I did this for two and a half hours and although I began to see some results there is still a lot of work to be done. The following are some before and after pictures. Chances are I'm not going to end up with a highly polished mirrored finish on most of these parts, but they will look much better when they are finished. The cleaning did leave some dark discoloration on the canvas which would of ended up on the wood had I not left the canvas in place. Now when I do remove the canvas from the steam trunk I should have some fairly clean natural wood to work with.  

It's tough to get a good picture of the change, but I assure you it is a dramatic difference.

This piece came out the best. I can't believe what a difference this made.

I was tempted to buy a stripping attachment for a power drill  when I was at the hardware store, but was advised against that.The technique that I've described in this post will help protect the wood and leather that the brass parts are attached to.  I do have some skills using a Dremel Tool so I may invest in one to put a nice finish on these parts.

You might be wondering why I just didn't remove all the parts from the trunk and then refinish them ?  I would strongly discourage this. You have to realize most of these steam trunks are over 100 years old. The less parts you remove the less chance you have of breaking something.  The less you bang on these things the better. The goal here is to improve the appearance of the steam trunk and do as little damage as possible. Not to mention if your trying to do a proper restore you want to change as little as possible.

I plan on doing this all week for a couple hours a day. I should be able to get most of the corrosion and dirt off these parts and return them close to there original luster. In the mean time I'll post some information about the trunk, try to find some trunk history on the Henry Likly Steam Trunk Company, and maybe a little information about me. Thanks for stopping by My Old Steam Trunk and I hope you found this post helpful.

Project time for this post 2 hours 30 minutes.
Total time so far 3 hours 45 minutes.
Cost spent on this post : $11.64
Total project cost so far : $11.64