Getting Down To Brass Tacks – How to Remove Paint And Polish Brass Hardware The Green Way

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March 19, 2013 by Decorum DIYer

Happy Tuesday!

On Sunday, St. Patrick’s Day, I shared with you my little gems.

I have a few finishing touches to do, but I will share better pictures soon. 

Two campaign night stands painted in the most gorgeous emerald color, Behr’s ‘Precious Emerald’.

In that post, I promised that I would provide a tutorial at a later date.

Well, today is the day that I share with you how I stripped all of the nasty silver spray paint from the original, brass hardware (which is iconic of campaign-styled furniture).

Furthermore, I will show you how I did it using general household items that are completely non-toxic.  Actually, it was like a mini science project in my very own kitchen!

As a reminder, here is what the silver, spray-painted brass draw pulls and corner brackets looked like after I removed them from the night stands:

I did a little research and came across this tip from both “This Old House” and also “Apartment Therapy“, which only requires boiling water in an old pot (not one to be used again for food) and baking soda.  Click here to be linked to the corresponding article on “Apartment Therapy” and here for the article on ‘This Old House”.

I also found a great post by none other than the “Centsational Girl“. She pretty much wrote the bible on cleaning brass, campaign hardware.  You can see her post – “Brass Hardware:  Polishing It, and Faking It”.  She has great tips and mucho information.  I’ll be paraphrasing some of it here, because, honestly, it works!

My version:

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Now the ‘getting down to brass tacks’ of it all:

• Step #1:  Remove hardware.
• Step #2: Boil at least one gallon of water (in a pot not to be used for food afterward) with four (4) tablespoons of baking soda.
• Step #3: Carefully place your paint/spray-paint covered hardware into the pot.
• Step #4:  Let the hardware boil for a good 20 minutes.
• Step #5:  Check the hardware, you should be able to tell if the paint has boiled off, as it will be floating in the water, although your brass will look scary at this point.
• Step #6:  Dry hardware.
• Step #7:  Mix fresh lemon juice (or in my case, I used freshly squeezed orange juice) and salt.  You should have a paste of sorts.  Not clumpy, but not a liquid.
• Step #8:  Using a soft rag (and possibly steel wool, although gingerly) wipe the lemon/salt mixture on the hardware and remove the tarnish.
• Step #9:  Admire your results! (and your free hand exfoliation to boot!)

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So, now that you know what to do, allow me to show you my journey.  If you are like me, a list is great, but I want pictures!

• Step #1:  Remove hardware. (done)
• Step #2: Boil at least one gallon of water (in a pot not to be used for food afterward) with four (4) tablespoons of baking soda.
• Step #3: Carefully place your paint/spray-paint covered hardware into the pot.
• Step #4:  Let the hardware boil for a good 20 minutes.
• Step #5:  Check the hardware, you should be able to tell if the paint has boiled off, as it will be floating in the water, although your brass will look scary at this point.  For me, it was very scary as my pot boiled over (I was a bad girl trying to do two things at once.) and made a huge mess!  But, the paint was off!
• Step #6:  Dry hardware. (Trust me.  It is at this point that I began to worry, “What have I done?”).  Wait, were these solid brass or brass plated?  Did I just remove the brass plating and the paint?  A reference to “Centsational Girl” again and I was reassured.  A little magnet helped me cool my jets.  Brass plated items are magnetic (thanks to the base metal on which the brass is plated) and the handles are solid brass, as they are non-magnetic.  So, since they both looked the same at this point, I decided to hold off any panic attacks until the polishing portion.
• Step #7:  Mix fresh lemon juice (or in my case, I used freshly squeezed orange juice, although I’d imagine any slight acid/fruit juice would work) and salt.  You should have a paste of sorts.  Not clumpy, but not a liquid either.  (Sorry, no photo of this.  I was too excited to get started!)
• Step #8:  Using a soft cloth (and possibly steel wool, although gingerly) wipe the lemon/salt mixture on the hardware and remove the tarnish. Be careful of using steel wool on brass-plated hardware, as you could scrub off the brass-plating.  Do as much as you can with the soft cloth (white is best to see your progress), then proceed with steel wool, if needed.
• Step #9:  Admire your results! (and your free hand exfoliation to boot!)

I think the results are stunning.  Quite honestly, I’m more thrilled and impressed with the how well the hardware cleaned-up than I am about any other part of the night stands’ transformation.  I really thought I might be forced to spray-paint that hardware again after all of my hard work.  I don’t mind the little dings and variations in color and sheen.  That is how one knows it is real brass hardware.  The slight patina on the hardware is perfect!

I love that they are so perfectly imperfect!

So, here’s a reminder of what the stripped and polished hardware looks like in place:

Gorgeous, brass hardware.

I’m in love!

(Pssst…, do you want to see these beauties in place and all dolled up?  You can, just click here for the full post.)

So, do you have any green cleaning or polishing to do for your brass hardware, now that you have seen how well this actually works?

Until next time….

The Shabby Creek Cottage – Transformation Thursday

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