Robert Kiebel
32 Cal
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How can I keep the brass butt plate,patch box, etc. from tarnishing?
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stop brass from tarnishing
- Thread starter Robert Kiebel
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About the best natural thing is to wax it with a good paste wax. It will need rewaxing a couple times a year to keep the protection.
A common method used by the big companies that make muzzleloaders is to spray it with a clear lacquer.
A common method used by the big companies that make muzzleloaders is to spray it with a clear lacquer.
I use Renaissance Wax, it was recommended to me by Jim Supica curator/director of the NRA Firearms Museum. It only needs reapplying after some use, in the rack the shine lasts a long time.
Actually I like the patina of aged brass. Call me weird, but I do. Birchwood Casey offers a gun wax. I use it on my stocks. You might try that.
Larry Akers
40 Cal.
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Get a can of clear engine enamel and coat your brass with an even coat. It doesn't show when dry, and will prevent tarnishing. I have a rifle I so treated more than 30 years ago and the brass is still shiny new. Not especially HC but it works.
I like the tarnished brass also. Gives it character.
Brass was not chosen for it's aesthetics when gun makers began using it.
Keeping brass bright and shiny is an endless task if you use the gun. A few decades of polishing brass on a few dozen guns and you'll learn to love the natural patina.
Keeping brass bright and shiny is an endless task if you use the gun. A few decades of polishing brass on a few dozen guns and you'll learn to love the natural patina.
Get a cream based brass polish. Use just a tiny bit on a soft cloth (old sock is great,) apply evenly, buff with clean cloth.
Brass will tarnish, it's just the nature of it. The cleaner you leave it, the slower it will tarnish, which is oxidation. That leads to corrosion, which can happen quicker where it meets wood or other metal (ie screws.)
To me, tarnished brass is a sign of neglect. In days long past, brass hardware, lanterns, bells, etc, would have been kept polished. Collectors today call it patina, but it's the beginning of rot.
Brass will tarnish, it's just the nature of it. The cleaner you leave it, the slower it will tarnish, which is oxidation. That leads to corrosion, which can happen quicker where it meets wood or other metal (ie screws.)
To me, tarnished brass is a sign of neglect. In days long past, brass hardware, lanterns, bells, etc, would have been kept polished. Collectors today call it patina, but it's the beginning of rot.
"To me, tarnished brass is a sign of neglect. In days long past, brass hardware, lanterns, bells, etc, would have been kept polished. Collectors today call it patina, but it's the beginning of rot."
Those who like patina, I often wonder if they brush their teeth!
Those who like patina, I often wonder if they brush their teeth!
Metalshaper
40 Cal.
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There is a product called NevR Dull.. comes in a can and I get mine at the hardware store.
Tear of a small chunk of the cleaner impregnated fiber and rub the brass with that.. it'll turn a smeary black for a bit
and then the brass will ( as my bud says ) shine like a diamond in a Goat's butt!
it will also resist tarnishing after that!
This is a funny thread. I'm no builder, I admit, but I did complete a Pendersoli Kentucky flintlock pistol kit this past winter. I went through the trouble of polishing all of the brass so that it shined like a mirror... and then applied Birchwood Casey's Brass Black to make it look weathered and old. To each their own I guess.
We're supposed to brush our teeth??!! No one ever tells me nuttin'.
Last edited:
Pete G
76 Cal.
Polished brass is fine if your persona is the greenhorn
I wouldn't call that tarnished, it's obvious it gets cleaned regularly.
Several of the companies that sell ML stuff sell brick dust or rotten stone. When you clean dip an end of cloth in the powder and rub your brass.
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The aged look from honest use is desirable. I find the look very appealing. The barrel and lock are the only parts that get cleaned. The rest of the parts, not so much. Maybe wipe the excess dirt from the wood before winter put up.
To look right and seemingly correct many of us grey beards like patina on our brass. And until this year it’s what I did. Then I got to thinking.
The first guns were simple iron tubes with a tiller of some sort to hold it. But even some of these hand gonnes would be fitted with some fancy decoration.
The first civilian guns were very fancy hunting guns. Fine woods were often so decorated with ivory brass silver gold antler horn mother of Pearl that one could barely see the wood.
Most early military shoulder guns were iron mounted, but the eighteenth century rise of professional armies would see the rise of brass mountings.
They wanted the army to look bright from arms to uniforms.
Civilian guns for work a day, the trade guns and the guns sold to North American settlers were early on iron mounted. By the first decades of the eighteenth century we see a rise of brass mounted American arms, and most early rifles cane in brass up till the nineteenth century.
Barrels could be bright, or blued, and browning was an off and on thing for years, becoming more popular on American guns in the nineteenth century..
The oft told tail of not wanting shinny brass in the woods doesn’t ring true for me. Even in a well let pasture catching a gleam off of brass in gun sized pieces is real rare and colorful clothing was sold on the frontier
Should you have got a brand new gun with a white barrel how would you have treated it back in the day.
Why was there the switch to brass parts in the eighteenth century?
I few months ago I buffed up my brass on my smooth rifle to match its in the white barrel.
It looks newbi to me, I like old looking tarnish. However they didn’t have old guns then.
And style is style
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