Taking Care Of Your Brass Door Handles And Knobs

By Author: Mat Bricks
Total Articles: 2
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Here are some easy ways to make sure that your brass door handles and knobs continue to look attractive year after year:
Vinegar: For solid brass, you can use high abrasion liquids such as vinegar to clean your door handles and knobs. Use 1 part vinegar and 3 parts water for this. You can find out if your handles are solid brass by scratching a bit of the surface to see if the colour underneath matches brass. If it does not, then your handles probably just have brass plating. Avoid material such as vinegar when your door handles and knobs are brass plated.
Soap and Water: If there is very little oxidation but the hardware still looks dark, you can try mixing a light detergent with hot water to take off the stains. You can use a standard toothbrush for this.
Ketchup or Lemon Juice: To remove slight tarnishing, once you have washed the brass door handle with soap and water, you could scrub it with a toothbrush dipped in a mildly acidic substance such as ketchup. You can use a stronger liquid like lemon juice if you think the tarnish is harder to remove.
Caustic Soda: For tougher tarnishes, you may either ...
... have to call in experts or get yourself some caustic soda. You need to be extremely careful with this, since it’s a very strong alkali and can burn the skin. Make sure you dilute it with water (1 part caustic soda and 3 parts water) before using, and get yourself a pair of rubber gloves. Also, you need to wash off the soda very quickly, once you see the oxidation disappearing, since the soda can potentially damage any etching or designs on the door handles and knobs. You can only use this method with solid brass door handles and knobs. For brass plated hardware, this may take away the plating altogether.
Irrespective of the method used, once your brass door handles look bright and shiny again, you need to make sure all the cleaning agents have come off completely. Use a wet cloth first to take off the agent and then dry thoroughly. You can go ahead and polish your brass handles with a zero ammonia metal polish (not Brasso) or with a natural substance like linseed oil. If you wish, you can also use a clear lacquer on the handles and knobs to retain the shine over a longer period of time.
Also, while maintaining your brass door hardware is important, it becomes that much easier when you use high quality fittings to begin with. Especially when it comes to sensitive material like brass, make sure you use high quality door handles and knobs from well-known vendors like www.doorhardware.co.uk.