Noxon

Henry Grunder <hgrunder<-a t->leo< . >vsla< . >edu> writes

>Thanks to all those who identified this for us. We have been advised
>that it and similar products might be just a little aggressive, and
>that a preferred initial approach would be to use "artists'
>whiting," i.e., precipitated calcium carbonate, mixed to a paste
>with distilled water.

I forget your original inquiry. If it was on silver polishing, the
whiting paste works OK. I have found that polishing brass with
whiting to be very time consuming, especially if the artifact is of
any appreciable size. I believe that CCI "informally" evaluated
copper alloy polishing products several years ago and found the
cotton waddings such as "Never Dull" and "Dura Glit" to be the least
abrasive. We have used them successfully for the past few years.
They seem gentle, yet effective. I believe they too have some
ammonia but I am not sure. Our solution to polishing brass
"household artifacts" in the collection has been to polish them well
one last time and then apply Incralac. From that point on, they can
just be dusted.

                                  ***
                 Conservation DistList Instance 10:100
                   Distributed: Monday, May 12, 1997
                       Message Id: cdl-10-100-001
                                  ***