AmericanLongRifles Forums
General discussion => Black Powder Shooting => Topic started by: swordmanjohn on August 13, 2008, 03:24:18 AM
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I had some brass parts to one of my muzzle loaders that I wanted to clean up so I tried something different. I soaked it in toilet bowl cleaner . After 2 hours the brass was completely cleaned and I made sure I rinsed it off and applied oil to preserve. So experiment # 2 was the bluing on another gun that I wanted to remove. After soaking for 28 hours the barrel came out completely clean and brite. Of course it was rinsed and cleaned with soap and plenty of water before it was treated with oil.
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Some claim for brass that you could use one of the Cola's like Coke or Pepsi which would be less corrosive? I know Coke cleans battery terminals pretty well.
DP
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I use period correct crushed red brick dust. It is what was used in the 18th century to polish all soft metals. I wet a patch with olive oil and put on a pinch of the fine brick dust and work it into the patch. Then I polish the metal. It works great and maintains the polished look much longer than Brasso. Crushed red brick dust is also what I use in my modern day re-loading tumbler to clean the brass cases.
Old weathered red bricks can be found anywhere on the ground ( The bricks I have I found while walking around the neighborhood and then just take a big hammer to it. I sift it though a homemade sifter to get the finest powder grade dust. You can't beat the price- Free.
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to remove the blueing get some Naval Jelly at the auto store....it takes the blueing off in about 2 minutes.....
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The secret ingredient in both the cola and toilet bowl cleaner is phosphoric acid. here is an idea for you. If you have a local Brew Pub or Micro Brewery, ( no their not the same thing) go ask them if they would give you a small amount of their supply. They use it for pacifying the stainless steel tanks. It dont take much and you will need to dilute the $#@* out of it- so a little will go a long way.
Darrin
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I do quite a bit of restoration work and use toilet bowl cleaner all the time. The brand name is "Works" and comes in the gray bottle. Its main acid is hydrochloric and is about a 15% solution, I think. I dilute about half with water and it takes off bluing and rust almost instantly. Rust is a bit slower to come off. Be very careful because one drop will streak bluing immediately.
It also works great to slightly etch parts before the browning process is started. Etch the parts for a few minutes than degrease with dish washing liquid and rinse clean and cold rusting will start immediately.
Don't leave parts in it to long or you will have repolish as it will etch them and leave a flat gray finish to the metal.
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Thats good to know. That stuff is even easier to come by.