Hi guys,
I make a lot of copper pieces, and need them to be really shiny.
They are about 500mm high and 50mm round, with a few bits and pieces
protroding which makes polishing really difficult.
I make HUNDREDS of them, so elbow grease is really not an option.

I am sure there is some kind of dip or something that can make them
shine.
I have tried a cream clenser which actually cleans them quite well, but
leaves them quite dull.
I need something that can clean them, AND leave them bright and shiny.

Also, there are some brass parts (which go pink if you soak it in
vinegar).

What can I use? I dont mind making a decent setup if need be.

wrote in message
oups.com...
Hi guys,
I make a lot of copper pieces, and need them to be really shiny.
They are about 500mm high and 50mm round, with a few bits and pieces
protroding which makes polishing really difficult.
I make HUNDREDS of them, so elbow grease is really not an option.

I am sure there is some kind of dip or something that can make them
shine.
I have tried a cream clenser which actually cleans them quite well, but
leaves them quite dull.
I need something that can clean them, AND leave them bright and shiny.

Also, there are some brass parts (which go pink if you soak it in
vinegar).

What can I use? I dont mind making a decent setup if need be.

Unless somebody has a chemical or electrochemical treatment to offer, I'd go
with jeweler's rouge and a couple of buffs on a (cheap) die grinder.
*That's* shiny. And the work goes fast and easy.

--
Ed Huntress

Not much good, as it is too hard to get around all the protuberances.
Also, I work from home, so some quieter method is also good.

By the way, there are no fine details that need to be preserved.

I knew of a coin collector than owned a bar. He used to keep his urinals
full of pennies to shine them up. If you buy the beer...I could supply a
bunch of volunteers to help you shine them up.



wrote in message
oups.com...
Hi guys,
I make a lot of copper pieces, and need them to be really shiny.
They are about 500mm high and 50mm round, with a few bits and pieces
protroding which makes polishing really difficult.
I make HUNDREDS of them, so elbow grease is really not an option.

I am sure there is some kind of dip or something that can make them
shine.
I have tried a cream clenser which actually cleans them quite well, but
leaves them quite dull.
I need something that can clean them, AND leave them bright and shiny.

Also, there are some brass parts (which go pink if you soak it in
vinegar).

What can I use? I dont mind making a decent setup if need be.

wrote:

Not much good, as it is too hard to get around all the protuberances.
Also, I work from home, so some quieter method is also good.

By the way, there are no fine details that need to be preserved.

Your best bet is probably a vibratory tumbler, same kind used to clean
and polish cases for reloading. You can get a decent smaller unit for
around $100 from a gun store or some decent sporting goods stores. There
are a number of different types of polishing media you'll have to try to
find the one that works best. If you get the unit at a good gun store
with people who know how to use them bring a sample part and they can
probably recommend the best media to try.

Pete C.

Again, no good because a) they are probably too big, and would not
tuble real well!
If you want to see what I am polishing, go to www.puredistilling.com

wrote:

Again, no good because a) they are probably too big, and would not
tuble real well!
If you want to see what I am polishing, go to www.puredistilling.com

They do indeed look to big for the tumblers you would find at a gun
store, I missed the 500mm part.

I think you might need to build a clothes dryer style tumbler drum. I'm
thinking something like a 30gal poly clamp band type removable head
drum. Make a base for it with two powered axle shafts with rubber wheels
for the drum to sit horizontally on and a horizontal idler wheel at each
end so the drum can't walk off. Probably want the thing to tumble pretty
slow, perhaps 5-10 rpm max.

Put enough polishing media in the drum to fill about 6" deep at the
bottom when the drum is on it's side. Stand the drum up and remove the
head to load perhaps 10 parts depending on how bad the protuberances
are, cover and then place on the tumbler base to tumble for a day. Not
particularly fast, but low labor and should be cheap enough to build a
second one if you need the production speed. Could build one base with a
single motor that would tumble two or even three drums.

Test the theory with a 5gal plastic pail and one or two parts placed in
a regular cloths dryer with towels packed around to stabilize (heat off
of course).

Pete C.

wrote:
Hi guys,
I make a lot of copper pieces, and need them to be really shiny.
They are about 500mm high and 50mm round, with a few bits and pieces
protroding which makes polishing really difficult.
I make HUNDREDS of them, so elbow grease is really not an option.

I am sure there is some kind of dip or something that can make them
shine.
I have tried a cream clenser which actually cleans them quite well, but
leaves them quite dull.
I need something that can clean them, AND leave them bright and shiny.

Also, there are some brass parts (which go pink if you soak it in
vinegar).

What can I use? I dont mind making a decent setup if need be.



Look into copper electroplating using a "leveling agent" or "shine enhancer"
(really an organic additive used to make the plating shiny.) You could dip the
parts and in about 1 minute have a very shiny, real copper coating. Try here or
google for more info: http://www.thinktink.com/stack/volum...i/copplate.htm

Coca-Cola. No ****, give it a try. Works for filthy shop clothes/rags,
too.

wrote in message
oups.com...
| Hi guys,
| I make a lot of copper pieces, and need them to be really shiny.
| They are about 500mm high and 50mm round, with a few bits and pieces
| protroding which makes polishing really difficult.
| I make HUNDREDS of them, so elbow grease is really not an option.
|
| I am sure there is some kind of dip or something that can make them
| shine.
| I have tried a cream clenser which actually cleans them quite well, but
| leaves them quite dull.
| I need something that can clean them, AND leave them bright and shiny.
|
| Also, there are some brass parts (which go pink if you soak it in
| vinegar).
|
| What can I use? I dont mind making a decent setup if need be.
|

Wont this put a copper coating on the brass too?

This is an easy one. Start with polished copper that has been laquered.
If you suspect the object will be exposed to the elements give it a
coating that blocks UV

On Fri, 13 Jan 2006 01:50:51 GMT, "Tom Gardner"
wrote:

I knew of a coin collector than owned a bar. He used to keep his urinals
full of pennies to shine them up. If you buy the beer...I could supply a
bunch of volunteers to help you shine them up.


Try soaking them in buttermilk.

wrote in message
roups.com...
Hi guys,
I make a lot of copper pieces, and need them to be really shiny.
They are about 500mm high and 50mm round, with a few bits and pieces
protroding which makes polishing really difficult.
I make HUNDREDS of them, so elbow grease is really not an option.

I am sure there is some kind of dip or something that can make them
shine.
I have tried a cream clenser which actually cleans them quite well, but
leaves them quite dull.
I need something that can clean them, AND leave them bright and shiny.

Also, there are some brass parts (which go pink if you soak it in
vinegar).

What can I use? I dont mind making a decent setup if need be.

That would require having polished copper to start with, plus I am
silver soldering to it

On 12 Jan 2006 17:33:39 -0800, wrote:

Hi guys,
I make a lot of copper pieces, and need them to be really shiny.
They are about 500mm high and 50mm round, with a few bits and pieces
protroding which makes polishing really difficult.
I make HUNDREDS of them, so elbow grease is really not an option.

I am sure there is some kind of dip or something that can make them
shine.
I have tried a cream clenser which actually cleans them quite well, but
leaves them quite dull.
I need something that can clean them, AND leave them bright and shiny.

Also, there are some brass parts (which go pink if you soak it in
vinegar).

What can I use? I dont mind making a decent setup if need be.

A number of acids will do this: dilute HCL, phosphoric acid
(CocaCola contains phosphoric acid), etc. BAM, a product by
Easy-Off for removing hard water stains, is shown brightening an old
penny in a TV ad. Oxalic acid might work.

Unfortunately, most acids attack zinc vigorously. This means that any
brass will have it's zinc attacked near the surface and turn pink or
copper-colored.

"Bright" and "shiney" are different. Bright means free of oxides;
shiney means that plus with a polished highly-reflective surface.

I would experiment with sodablasting. That's used to clean fine
mechanisms as for aerospace, and it's also use in dentistry for
removing stubborn plaque.

It's like sandblasting but uses ordinary baking soda, or washing
soda (sodium carbonate) which is also used for raising pH in swimming
pools. Take one of your gizmos to a place that does sodablast and
see how it works, or just try some soda in one of those small $39
hopper-fed blasters. Do this outoors, because I expect it would make
quite a mess. If soda seems to work well, I'd think you could build
a sodablast box fairly easily out of readily-available materials.
Another poster made a gritblast cabinet out of a plastic storage tub
from Wal-Mart. You'd probably need a vent stack; I'd make that
vertical, out of 3" or 4" material so the air velocity in the stack is
low and most of the air-entrained soda eventually falls back into the
box. It might help to put a centrufugal cyclone separator (3 pound
coffee can, tangentially fed and axially exhausted) in the vent line.
The trap would need to be emptied periodically.

I have not done this for finish, but I have brush air blasted some
copper, it really did get that shiny new copper look. You might
look into blasting with walnut shells, baking soda, or some other
gentle medium.

(top posted for your convenience)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Keep the whole world singing . . . .
DanG (remove the sevens)




wrote in message
oups.com...
Hi guys,
I make a lot of copper pieces, and need them to be really shiny.
They are about 500mm high and 50mm round, with a few bits and
pieces
protroding which makes polishing really difficult.
I make HUNDREDS of them, so elbow grease is really not an
option.

I am sure there is some kind of dip or something that can make
them
shine.
I have tried a cream clenser which actually cleans them quite
well, but
leaves them quite dull.
I need something that can clean them, AND leave them bright and
shiny.

Also, there are some brass parts (which go pink if you soak it
in
vinegar).

What can I use? I dont mind making a decent setup if need be.

What does a blaster look like? Can someone send me a link to a pic so I
can have a look for one in Australia?

On 13 Jan 2006 00:38:18 -0800, wrote:

What does a blaster look like? Can someone send me a link to a pic so I
can have a look for one in Australia?

One version of the small blaster that might serve to experiment with
soda is item # 92857 at
www.harborfreight.com

Lots of stuff, including cabinets and plan and/or kits to make your
own cabinet at:
www.tptools.com

I particularly recommend their S-25 gun. It is far superior to any
other siphon gun I've ever used. I've never tried it with soda, but
it works great with the usual grits -- sand, aluminum oxide, glass
beads, and crushed walnut shells.

Crushed walnut shells may well work well for you. I've used that to
clean rather tenacious paint from brass items without marring the
underlying brass. It didn't polish the brass, but it didn't degrade
the surface finish either. The result was bright brass that had the
"as machined" surface finish which was pretty good though not buffed
to a mirror finish.

The application was some old precision bubble levels from tank
periscopes or something that had decades-old tough green drab paint on
them. They cleaned up very nicely.

I noted that blasting soda with "large, jagged irregular shape" is
available from www.northerntool.com. I wonder if blasting soda
might therefore be coarser (larger particle size) than household
baking soda, though chemically identical. That might make it feed
better in a blaster.

An advantage to soda is that, unlike other blasting media, it's water
soluble. A wash with warm water would remove all of it from nooks
and crannies in the workpiece, leaving no residual grit.

You might consider sending your stuff out to be cleaned up and
polished. There are companies that do that. They have the
techniques and capital equipment for the job. I know that because I
had a very good friend and fishin' buddy who started and ran such a
business. It was called "Deburring, Inc". We became good friends
during the course of my pursuit of his daughter, who is now my wife
and companion of more than 20 years. He was also a machinist,
fisherman, pretty decent stick weldor and a vet.

They deburred, cleaned, and polished everything from cellphone
antennas and snowmobile skids to heart valves and stainless steel hip
joint replacements. A lot of their stuff was done in batches, in big
rotary machines he called "Harperizers" that were charged with a load
of workpieces, suitable abrasive media, sometimes some liquid,
and then run for a while. Bernie didn't tell his process secrets,
but I have a hunch that the media he'd have used on your parts might
have been crushed corncobs. You may know of what we call corn as
maize. That might well do some polishing as well as cleaning.

I've no idea what the per-piece cost might be for your stuff at a
comparable place near you, if there is one, but I'll note that the
basis of his biz was that he could do such things for less than the
companies who needed it done could do it themselves if they even
could do it themselves. The company is still in bidness though Bern
has been gone for over a decade now.

On 12 Jan 2006 17:40:27 -0800, wrote:
Not much good, as it is too hard to get around all the protuberances.
Also, I work from home, so some quieter method is also good.

By the way, there are no fine details that need to be preserved.

I wonder if there's any blasting media which might be used for
polishing? Baking soda? At least, can it get you closer to polished
and do the "heavy lifting" for you?

On Fri, 13 Jan 2006 01:56:47 GMT, Pete C. wrote:
wrote:

Not much good, as it is too hard to get around all the protuberances.
Also, I work from home, so some quieter method is also good.

By the way, there are no fine details that need to be preserved.

Your best bet is probably a vibratory tumbler, same kind used to clean
and polish cases for reloading.

That was my initial thought, but he's talking things 18" tall by 4"
across.

On 12 Jan 2006 18:01:57 -0800, wrote:
Again, no good because a) they are probably too big, and would not
tuble real well!
If you want to see what I am polishing, go to www.puredistilling.com

OK, so let's combine that idea with my just posted blasting idea - what
about blasting it with the same media used in a vibratory polisher -
corncob with polishing agent? Might be faster than you'd think. If my
blast cabinet hadn't _just_ been switched over to another media, I'd
offer to give it a try. (for the record, it's a pain in the ass to
switch from one media to another - if anyone has a better idea, let me
know)

wrote:
Wont this put a copper coating on the brass too?


Anything conductive in the plating solution will get plated, except for
"exotic" materials such as titanium, platinum, stainless steel, etc.

Don Foreman wrote:
On 12 Jan 2006 17:33:39 -0800, wrote:

Hi guys,
I make a lot of copper pieces, and need them to be really shiny.
They are about 500mm high and 50mm round, with a few bits and pieces
protroding which makes polishing really difficult.
I make HUNDREDS of them, so elbow grease is really not an option.

I am sure there is some kind of dip or something that can make them
shine.
I have tried a cream clenser which actually cleans them quite well, but
leaves them quite dull.
I need something that can clean them, AND leave them bright and shiny.

Also, there are some brass parts (which go pink if you soak it in
vinegar).

What can I use? I dont mind making a decent setup if need be.

A number of acids will do this: dilute HCL, phosphoric acid
(CocaCola contains phosphoric acid), etc. [snip]


HCL will indeed dissolve the oxides... and both the zinc and copper too. I was
going to suggest this might be an option, but any corrosive action taken to
brass will require further and more extensive buffing and polishing. Since the
material in question is relatively thin already perhaps it may be best to avoid
acid etching. That said, Caswell does make a brush-on shiny brass-plating kit...
might be good to repair very deteriorated finishes. Ask them for more info. They
can be found on eBay by searching for "brass electroplating" there.

There is/was a guy near Vancouver, WA that did sodablasting to restore
old car components like instruments, bezels, even plastic. Results look
beautiful without damage to the piece. Check with old car restorers in
AU and see if they can direct you to someone locally.

Paul

Dave Hinz wrote:

On Fri, 13 Jan 2006 01:56:47 GMT, Pete C. wrote:
wrote:

Not much good, as it is too hard to get around all the protuberances.
Also, I work from home, so some quieter method is also good.

By the way, there are no fine details that need to be preserved.

Your best bet is probably a vibratory tumbler, same kind used to clean
and polish cases for reloading.

That was my initial thought, but he's talking things 18" tall by 4"
across.

Yes, I missed the 500mm part, just saw the 50mm which is reasonable for
a decent VT. Then I suggested a tumbler polisher made from a 30gal poly
drum which sounds a lot like what someone else later mentioned was used
in a commercial polishing shop.

Pete C.

On Fri, 13 Jan 2006 19:05:38 GMT, Pete C. wrote:
Dave Hinz wrote:

That was my initial thought, but he's talking things 18" tall by 4"
across.

Yes, I missed the 500mm part, just saw the 50mm which is reasonable for
a decent VT. Then I suggested a tumbler polisher made from a 30gal poly
drum which sounds a lot like what someone else later mentioned was used
in a commercial polishing shop.

I saw that. I think our threads crossed, and we were replying to each
other while the other was, or whatever. THat would do it, and it's not
like a motor with an offset weight on the shaft is hard to come up with.

Pete C. wrote:
wrote:

Not much good, as it is too hard to get around all the protuberances.
Also, I work from home, so some quieter method is also good.

By the way, there are no fine details that need to be preserved.


Your best bet is probably a vibratory tumbler, same kind used to clean
and polish cases for reloading. You can get a decent smaller unit for
around $100 from a gun store or some decent sporting goods stores. There
are a number of different types of polishing media you'll have to try to
find the one that works best. If you get the unit at a good gun store
with people who know how to use them bring a sample part and they can
probably recommend the best media to try.

This thing is about 20 inches long. Do those tumblers come that big?

Rex B wrote:

Pete C. wrote:
wrote:

Not much good, as it is too hard to get around all the protuberances.
Also, I work from home, so some quieter method is also good.

By the way, there are no fine details that need to be preserved.


Your best bet is probably a vibratory tumbler, same kind used to clean
and polish cases for reloading. You can get a decent smaller unit for
around $100 from a gun store or some decent sporting goods stores. There
are a number of different types of polishing media you'll have to try to
find the one that works best. If you get the unit at a good gun store
with people who know how to use them bring a sample part and they can
probably recommend the best media to try.

This thing is about 20 inches long. Do those tumblers come that big?

They probably do, and with a price tag to match. I missed the 500mm, saw
the 50mm. See my other post for other ideas.

Pete C.

wrote in message
oups.com...
What does a blaster look like? Can someone send me a link to a pic so I
can have a look for one in Australia?



If a bead / sand / particle blaster is what Dan means - Fiora machinery in
Perth, West Oz make and sell one.
http://www.fioramachinery.com.au/Manufacturing.htm

Blackwoods / Atkins etc will probably also sell them.


You can also pick up just the handpieces at some of the car / tool accessory
places and build your own enclosure.
If you were using abrasive softer than sand you might be able to make up
your own handpiece.

I saw a polishing tumbler built from a 20 or 30 litre plastic drum, it was
full of small ceramic looking cones + water. It did a good job of polishing
up stainless steel medical instruments the guy was making. It rotatated
pretty slowly, maybe one every couple of seconds.

rob