Heathcliff wrote:

On Feb 11, 5:29 pm, Nate Nagel wrote:
OK, so I'm delving into an area that I know little about now...
DECORATING. Weekend before last, SWMBO and I ran up to this salvage
place and found a door for my bedroom closet, along with some doorknobs
and rosettes to match the rest of the house. Now in the rest of the
house, where I've been replacing wiring devices, I've been replacing
them with white Decora, per SWMBO. However, my own personal tastes are
a little more conservative; the little bedroom is MY ROOM and I'm doing
it up old school, with an Oriental rug and as much as I can, fixtures
roughly appropriate to the age of the house (1948.) I've already
located some of the real deal .040" thick brass receptacle and switch
plates with the nice crisp corners, and the wiring devices in that room
will be brown as would be typical. (never mind that this particular
house is, um, inexpensive enough that it would likely have had ribbed
Bakelite or other plastic plates, I'm exercising a little artistic
license here.)

Question is this. Some well meaning sort polished and lacquered the
plates for me already, and the knobs will have to be polished before
they are installed as they were lacquered as well but the lacquer wore
off in some places and is crazing in others. The brass in the rest of
the house (appears to have been originally unlacquered) has a nice brown
patina which SWMBO says she likes better than bright brass, and I tend
to agree with her. Is there some easy chemical means to acquire such a
patina, or should I just strip everything and polish it bright, install
it, and ignore it for a couple decades?

Sidebar question - the rosettes I picked up were brass plated steel. Is
this something that one could re-electroplate at home, or would it be
best to send them to a professional plating shop? I do have the
capability to electrolytically derust them and also have the ability to
buff them if a copper undercoat is required. The sum total of my
knowledge of plating is due entirely to my experience restoring old
cars, where I just send stuff off to the chrome shop (well, I did have
two little emblems gold electroplated for my '62 Stude hardtop, as
reproductions were not available, but I paid someone to do that as well.)

thanks,

nate

--
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I'd like to know how to get that patina too. Have you tried anything
yet? The only DIY suggestion I saw in the discussion so far is
vinegar fumes. One other idea is to visit or call a stained-glass
shop (one that sells supplies for making your own pieces) - they sell
solutions for patina-ing metals, although I don't know if they would
have one specifically to make the brass brown.

The Caswell site I indicated has finishing / patina chemicals in
addition to plating ones. They also have a lot of tech info. Pretty much
everything you'd want to know about metal finishing.