"mlcorson" wrote in message
ups.com...
| I recently brought home a good length of 1/4" copper stranded rope. The
| stuff is just like rope being made of very thin copper strands. Very
| pliable...to a point. When I found it at the junk yard and it was
| pretty dirty, greasy and green tarnished. I thought no problem, I'll
| pull my immersion in weak solution of Muratic acid trick on it to
| clean it up. It has not worked. The copper has a red tinged dust or
| coating between the fibers I can't seem to remove it easily. I've used
| scrothbrite down the whole length of it with ok results on the surface
| areas, but the internal areas still look dingy. Any Ideas for a total
| rehab? To get it back to shiny copper. I was going to use it for a
| finished sculpture item. I bought it cheap, so it dosen't really
| matter, but sometimes its just easier to purchase virgin materials.
| This stuff is pretty unique in my opinion. Thanks
| -Mike
|

I just got to thinking that you need two cleaning processes, one for the
solids and one to address the corrosion. Have you given any thought to
putting it through your dishwasher? You might have to come up with some
kind of support and do it a couple times turning it over, but that might
help clean out the deeper parts. Dishwashers work wonders, but since so few
of us actually do dishes, the device is a complete stranger. After that
perhaps a chemical cleaner, but you need to make sure it's diluted enough
that you can do a good job of rinsing it all out thoroughly.