Tarnished Brass Front Door Handset
I bought a nice Baldwin brass handset three years ago for my double front doors from Simons Hardware in Midtown. They are now looking a little shabby, i.e. getting spotted and tarnished. The warrantee covered this for a year and both the store and the manufacturer really didn’t provide much help or information on how…
I bought a nice Baldwin brass handset three years ago for my double front doors from Simons Hardware in Midtown. They are now looking a little shabby, i.e. getting spotted and tarnished. The warrantee covered this for a year and both the store and the manufacturer really didn’t provide much help or information on how to make these things look good again. (Baldwin said get a local metal working company to remove the tarnish). It is a satin finish and I understand that a thin layer of lacquer is originally applied to the metal to prevent corrosion and that the gradual erosion of this protection allowed for the tarnish. I am ok with applying a little elbow grease with some Brasso if that is what it takes , but I think that it may need to cleaned and an application of that protective layer of lacquer to prevent this in the future.
Does anyone have any experience with this or any advice?
Thanks, Brownstoners
eman1234, I think the finish cannot be the vulgar looking shiny brass, since as I mentioned it is a satin finish, meaning the brass surface has been brushed. The burnished look you describe I believe is impossible with brass. Tarnished brass is black and green. At the moment it looks like it is splattered with bird droppings. So thanks for your advice, not the elegant look I too am looking for.
CMU, I had a cheapie, dented one-sided but functional handset before I got new doors. It worked but looked like it belonged on the backdoor of a warehouse. Not too pretty.
Well, thanks for your advice all. I’ll post on what I do.
This is a genuine question: is it that the more you pay for something the more maintenance it needs (marble or granite counters, sub-zero frig, glass tile, brass fixtures)? The last time I even looked at my door handles was never. But it’s probably a HD special (I didn’t buy it).
polished brass is vulgar looking…strip the lacquer off and let it patina..shiny bras looks like donald trump..loud and tasteless
BHS, I think I am seeing normal tarnish in the areas where the lacquer has worn away.
Just to be clear, a lot of lacquer wears away in a patchy way, requiring that you remove the lacquer in order to get the thing consistent (unless Bob Marvin’s quicker idea of polishing the exposed areas works). but from your description it isn’t 100% clear that you aren’t just seeing normal tarnish. Brass is really easy to polish so hopefully that’s all it will take.
I’ve been experimenting with applying some paste wax on certain hard-to-polish brass items to keep them from tarnishing or reacting to things that come in contact with them and it seems to be working ok. I don’t recommend brass toilet seat hinges!
This handset wasn’t cheap. In fact it was pretty pricey and it looks awful now. I don’t mind regular polishing. It just has to work.
If you try polishing with Simichrome it will remove SOME of the lacquer, but mainly it will polish those areas where the lacquer has worn off. It would only take a few minutes to see if it works and looks good. Repeated polishing, over a period of months, or years, would eventually wear away the rest of the lacquer. If it looks good with light polishing, you’ll have saved a lot of work; if it doesn’t look good, you won’t have lost much and could move on to stripping all the lacquer which, I think, would require removing the hardware from the door.
I too am on the hate-lacquered-brass bandwagon. It’s OK for interior fittings that don’t get use, though. There are products that specifically remove the lacquer, then you can respray it, or just get a good polishing regimen going. For co-op doormen it seems to be 2x a week…
Lacquered brass is one of my BIG gripes. It looks awesome right out of the package and then goes to hell in a handbasket, and instead of just being able to polish it you have to go through this nonsense to strip off the deteriorating lacquer. My old original hardware in this old house is great, just polish it; I’d trade that off for the short-lived “better than new” look of lacquer any day.