I have been trying to find the best way to clean brass, I am of the belief that if you are using too much elbow grease then you are not using the right or strong enough chemicals. What I have tried recently was making a paste with flower, vinegar, and salt and using small paintbrush applying the coating to the brass item. I have also in the past just tried leaving the item in hydrochloric acid however these two methods leave me with a pinkish dull color I heard this might be due to the fact Zinc readily degenerates more than copper. Another thought was 98% sulfuric acid but I want to hold off on that.

Also rust removal anyone have any options on using Electrolysis vs chemicals?

There is an expensive, but very effective brass cleaner called "Marz". Try that.

Richard - would that be "Maas"?
https://www.maasinc.com/maas_metalpolish_products.aspx

The process you describe is known as dezincification. A Google search will give plenty of information on the process.

You are correct that zinc is much more reactive than copper, and that acid will make the process go very fast.

Older brass alloys (with about 38% Zn typically) like those found in railroad artifacts are very susceptible to dezincification.

In preservation, it is essential to understand that over-aggressive polishing (either physical or chemical) can actually destroy the historic value of the artifact.

Electrolysis works well to remove rust, in my experience. Here is the link to the instructions I followed, but there are several more if you Google the subject:

http://wiki.vintagemachinery.org/RustRe ... lysis.ashx

What it does is change red rust (ferrous oxide) to black rust (ferric oxide). Black rust has much less of a bond with the bare metal and, once my piece was dry after the treatment, I could easily remove the black rust with steel wool, down to the bare metal.

(The piece I de-rusted was a flywheel about 3 1/2 ft. in diameter. To make a "tub" to put it in, I made a square frame of 2X6's on a cement floor, put heavy plastic sheeting inside and over the 2X6"s, put the flywheel in and supported it slightly off the bottom, and then filled the "tub" until the flywheel was completely covered).

Noxon...in the green bottle. It works on all metals and if you get residue down in cracks you can use acetone to wash it out. It puts others to shame. Lowes carries it...as does Ace.

Have you tried Brasso? This product has been around for a long time and it will clean and polish brass and other metals. To keep the shine you may want to spray a clear coating on the polished brass.

Rust removal is a different subject. At the Museum of Transportation in St Louis we use several methods.

If a panel is badly rusted and has holes in it we cut it out with an angle grinder with a cutting blade and weld in a new piece of metal. New sheet metal needs to be thoroughly cleaned and etched for primer to stick to it.

We sometimes use a needle scaler to remove rust that is bad but not completely rusted through.

The method I like best is to remove the rust with a wire cup on an angle grinder and brush paint it with Rustoleum Rust Reformer. Rust reformer is water based and will soak into the rust better than oil based primers. Wait for the rust reformer to turn black and dry completely then topcoat with a oil based finish paint.

I recently needed to clean up 90 year old brass light fixtures. Some areas completely black with baked on soot and grime. I do not like removing any original finish. Brushing and buffing an antique to a shiny bright brass finish is just heresy.
What I used here was oven cleaner. Put the brass parts in a covered plastic container sprayed and brushed on the cleaner then let it stand covered for two hours. Hand sprayed with water and a soft brush and the grime simply fell off.
The brass had been lacquered and some of that came off but it was quite dirty. After rinse and dry I took the rest off with a little lacquer thinner. Then applied a little mild brass polish and hand buffing. Finally re sprayed with a thin coat of clear lacquer.
Don't have a pix of this fixture but it turned out similar to the one pictured here.
This is for a 100+ year old Pullman, and I think leaving the patina is the right thing to do.
Larger parts could be wrapped up with plastic then sprayed.
May be the metallurgists in the group can comment on oven cleaner being bad for the brass or not.

Brasso is nifty for surfaces that you can physically 'get to' to polish -- and you will have to do mechanical polishing well past the point where the 'shine' begins to come up to get rid of the tenacious haze on the surface.

One of the points made mentioning Noxon was that the white 'deposit' of abrasive particles and dry material is soluble -- this in part in by comparison with Brasso, which leaves a visible deposit in the 'nooks and crannies' (including any surface pits and imperfections) that can be difficult to remove without ultrasonics...

I would NOT recommend attempting to use any kind of clear coating on a surface that has just been polished with Brasso. There will be a thin layer remaining on the surface (I think this contains some kind of oil that is intended as a 'barrier layer' to slow down the rate at which the brass will darken) and you will see peeling and delamination sooner or later -- probably sooner.

"traditional wisdom" says that you never topcoat polished brass -- invest the time and effort into keeping it polished instead. That's not practical for a wide range of volunteer preservation organizations! So if you choose to topcoat, CLEAN the pieces very carefully and thoroughly (including with toothpicks etc. down in the crannies and pits) before you spray that topcoat. You'll probably spend at least as much time 'cleaning off' after using Brasso as you actually spent polishing...

Something else to consider (I have never gotten around to doing this experimentally, and I apologize in advance) -- different products use a different mix of abrasive sizes and 'aggressiveness'. That is a primary reason Brasso's user notes advise not using it on sterling -- and why you should be extremely circumspect using it to polish gold-filled pocket-watch cases! (That green-black deposit on your cloth is largely colored with finely-divided gold!) While the 'tooth' may be comparatively unimportant in bringing up a normatively shiny surface on a 'show' piece, it might be significant if you're trying to achieve a 'historical' look, or make a surface that will develop a historical kind of 'patina' as it ages or runs in service.

An alternative method is described here:

http://www.stylenorth.ca/blog/2011/02/s ... n-cleaner/

Note the caveat about using the cold-oven formula of oven cleaner -- I am not sure whether this is for safety or 'chenical-effectiveness' considerations.

Naturally you would substitute different types and 'aggressiveness' of scrubber depending on how important the surface finish is for you.

I was taught, as a general rule, not to mess with attempting to preserve 'some' of an original surface coating when refinishing brass -- you'll generally notice the difference between the polished and coated regions right away, and they will not 'age' to a common color afterwards unless you're preternaturally lucky. On the other hand, what buzz is describing here is primarily a removal of grime and dark tarnish rather than a 'refinishing' -- and if the original coating is part of the historical importance, then it may be worth attempting to 'preserve' it.

Well here are some intresting results. The Top one has not been cleaned the middle one has been scrubbed just using Brasso the bottom one was soaked in vinegar and salt solution.
At first I thought the color difference was due to the way I cleaned it but I later found out that the one in the middle is actually a reproduction part and must be made out of some other type of breath I wonder how one good thing about figuring out what kind of brass they have when replicating a part.

Better than Brasso is Wenol.
http://wenol-polish.com/wenolredmetalpolish.html

It's a German product - extremely fast on mild to moderate tarnish. soap and water clean up. Get out an old toothbrush for the nooks and crannies...