On Dec 28, 5:49*am, Wilfred Xavier Pickles
wrote:
I bought 2 end-table lamps years ago. Neither cheap nor expensive, like the
common fare at a decent dept. store. 95% metal, the bottom 1/3 is brass (or
similar) plated steel (according to my magnet), the upper 2/3 is evidently
real brass.

The bottom 1/3 of each is corroding and looks pretty bad.

I don't wanna spend $100 for another pair of rustable lamps. Would like
to re-condition what I have.

What can be done with plated steel? Surface-prep and paint? Anything else
come to mind?

snip

Most of the posts above are typical of people who want to do things
the hard way. Not much been there, done that.
Here's what works: buy a glass bead blasting gun from Harbor Freight
($15). Fill it with clean sand, glass beads , mashed up kitty litter
or whatever will go through the gun. Hook up to an air compressor,
blast your parts to perfect clean metal ( leaves a matte finish).
Elapsed time, maybe 15 minutes. Spray with Rustoleum primer and paint
to suit. Or, take the clean parts to a metal plating shop if you
really must, but frankly they would look just as good using Rustoleum
silver or gold spray paint.
Now sell the sprayer on Craig's list for $10 and you have reduced your
outlay to maybe $10 total. Odds are though, you'll find quite a lot of
use for the outfit and wind up keeping it.
If you are tool poor and don't have an air compressor, any automotive
machine shop will have a glass bead blasting cabinet and can clean
your parts quickly. In fact some plating shops may use that system.

Joe
Joe

On 12/29/2010 8:47 PM, Joe wrote:
On Dec 28, 5:49 am, Wilfred Xavier
wrote:
I bought 2 end-table lamps years ago. Neither cheap nor expensive, like the
common fare at a decent dept. store. 95% metal, the bottom 1/3 is brass (or
similar) plated steel (according to my magnet), the upper 2/3 is evidently
real brass.

The bottom 1/3 of each is corroding and looks pretty bad.

I don't wanna spend $100 for another pair of rustable lamps. Would like
to re-condition what I have.

What can be done with plated steel? Surface-prep and paint? Anything else
come to mind?

snip

Most of the posts above are typical of people who want to do things
the hard way. Not much been there, done that.
Here's what works: buy a glass bead blasting gun from Harbor Freight
($15). Fill it with clean sand, glass beads , mashed up kitty litter
or whatever will go through the gun. Hook up to an air compressor,
blast your parts to perfect clean metal ( leaves a matte finish).
Elapsed time, maybe 15 minutes. Spray with Rustoleum primer and paint
to suit. Or, take the clean parts to a metal plating shop if you
really must, but frankly they would look just as good using Rustoleum
silver or gold spray paint.

Silver spray paint looks as good as real brass? Oh, yeah. Think I'll
go spray all my brass with silver paint so's I don't need to polish and
recoat it ever again. A plating shop also would likely polish and coat
the object. Since part of the lamp is solid brass, it suggests it is
fair quality and worthy of doing it right.


Now sell the sprayer on Craig's list for $10 and you have reduced your
outlay to maybe $10 total. Odds are though, you'll find quite a lot of
use for the outfit and wind up keeping it.
If you are tool poor and don't have an air compressor, any automotive
machine shop will have a glass bead blasting cabinet and can clean
your parts quickly. In fact some plating shops may use that system.

Joe
Joe