Hi Jay - Unfinished brass will tarnish faster than you would find desirable. Best is to use a lacquer that is specially formulated for brass - it retards the tarnishing process amazingly well. As far as color, it is true that any finish will alter the look of the brass, usually making it appear more pale. You might consider polishing the brass further. Steel wool gives a satin finish. Moving to tripoli on a buffing wheel will bring up the sheen considerably and add some depth and color. Moving to rouge on the wheel will give you a brilliant sheen with great depth. An old brass instrument repair fellow I know purposefully leaves some residue of the rouge compound on the brass after polishing and finishes right over it. Leaves the brass with a nice warm reddish hue. You might check in your area for who does brass finishing, esp. on musical instruments. They would be a great resource for ways to introduce color into your finished look. I recall once seeing in a brass musical intrument repair catalog a brass finish with a toner formulated into it to bring color to the finished look Mark Potter bases-loaded@juno.com On Wed, 10 Apr 2002 04:39:51 "Jay Mercier" <jaymercier@hotmail.com> writes: > After I have "scrubbed" the grime off of all the solid brass parts > with > steel wool, the brass looks new again. How long will it stay > "new-looking" > without doing anything further? What Should I apply to help protect > it from > tarnishing again? I tried some spray lacquer from the hardware > store on one > part - it doesn't look as good as before I applied it. Any > suggestions > would be appreciated. > > > Jay Mercier > > > _________________________________________________________________ > Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: > http://messenger.msn.com > >
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