Polishing Compounds?

[Ken Herrick]

The same compounds used on a buffing wheel are used with a rag.
Tripoli is a fairly aggressive one used for initial polishing for removing heavy corrosion, solder etc.
Rouge is a finishing compound and is used to give bright colour.

liquid polishes, such as Brasso or silver polish can also be used where there is only slight tarnish.

Any of these should be available at a decent hardware store in small quantities or through a lapidary or jewellers supply. Some jewellers will even sell or give you small pieces.

For the solid compounds secure one end of the rag (cheesecloth strips work well, as do those old t-shirts) and rub the compound onto it.

For really bad spots - like heavy solder - a narrow strip of FINE emery cloth is good. Crocus cloth is very fine and is not much more aggressive than the tripoli.

Keep in mind that any polishing does remove some metal and care should be taken - especially with emery cloth. Silver plating is pretty thin so be especially careful about polishing it. For silver CLR is a pretty good cleaner - just be sure to rinse well.

[Ken Herrick]

The Ryobi (r)compound you have could be pretty aggressive. Anything that can work on stainless steel will, likely, be a bit harsh if you merely want to shine up something made of brass. Not really knowing what you want to polish, I rather suspect that you probably don't need anything harsher than rouge and quite likely just a liquid metal polish.
What is it you want to do?
Are you wanting to merely shine something up and is it silver, brass, nickel plate?

Also, if it is bare patches on a lacquered instrument you need to be careful if you don't want make them bigger.

[Tom]

Just in case anyone is making a shopping list (especially younger folks or folks with school instruments)...

Brasso is not to be used on lacquered brass instruments (i.e. use on raw brass only). Silvero (Silvo ???) is the version for silver. Care needs to be taken when using this, too.

Rouge/Tripoli/Emery Cloth should also not be used on lacquered or plated instruments with home buffing tools since you'll wreck the finish. Most people don't know what this stuff is or how to use it, so probably no need for concern here, but thought I'd mention it anyway. They are tools used by pros when prepping instruments for their final finish.

The kind of polishing and buffing seen in the how-it's-made video is to prepare and instrument to be lacquered. The instrument needs to be polished to a mirror finish, degreased, then lacquered. This isn't exactly a DIY type of job and the compounds available at building supply stores really aren't intended for this.

Maybe I'm the only one thinking all of this, but thought I'd point it out.

Mostly I just wanted to save someone from polishing a lacquered school 186 with Brasso and stripping the lacquer off of it.

[Ken Herrick]

It really all depends on whether it is bare brass, silver plate (frosted or bright) or good lacquer with only a few spots you want to clean up. Note the warning advice given above.

A word of caution - you will need to be very careful doing anything with the slide as it is easy to bend or mis-align it.

If it is bare metal, it might he as well to buy a bottle or two of CLR and let it have a bit of a soak in a tub to clean it up. It virtually works like a "chem clean" but will not eat away the instrument like the professional bright dip can do. Full strength works best -diluted takes longer. A good clean of the slides with a cleaning snake will then leave a clean internal surface. Not a bad idea to give a good detergent clean of the slides to remove old oil/slide cream first or at the least.

When I was repairing instruments in the "bush" (country Australia) and did not/could not have a bright dip tank I used a lot of CLR to clean up instruments. It removed tarnish and calcium build up and left a pretty clean, shiny finish to brass and silver. I used it on brass as well as flutes and sax bodies and key work. It really does make a good DYI chem cleaner cum bright dip which is safe and does not require EPA permits. Even handy if you have to clean the silver for that formal dinner!

A recent poster was mentioning getting his horn pro cleaned every year - hey, a bit of learning how to pull apart and reassemble a tuba and this stuff will save a lot of money.

[FreeBandMusic]

I've used NeverDull, which comes in a can; it looks like clothes dryer link soaked in kerosene. It's great if you want to polish a tarnished instrument (as opposed to buffing). I don't think it contains any abrasive at all; if so, it's very gentle (less than brasso, anyway).

Pull a wad of this stuff out of the can, and wipe it over the horn. Nothing happens. Wipe again, and you take off a lot of tarnish. Again, and most of the horn is really shining up. You can get it at Wal-Mart in the automotive dept.

John Thompson
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[BlueGrassBrass]

An unused (of course) strip of the wick that use for lanterns can be used for this. You apply the compound to it and buff away. ********Be careful, this is going to be more abrasive than the forementioned methods due to the material******** If you want to learn though, this is the best way to do it, in my opinion. With alot of practice, and patience, it provides beautiful results, wether you are "cutting" with your tripoli, buffing it out, or "coloring" (rouge).