Thread: Restore help needed

Went antique shopping today with swmbo. Found a few older straights. Nothing worth repair to me. Being a DE fan I did pick up some vintage gillettes. One gold open comb an on nickel closed comb. The gold is a 3 piece. Nickel is a 2 piece. Both need just basic cleaning an polishing. I did some searching on here an have come up with so many different ways to go about it. These are mostly rust free. Just looking for polishing an sterilizing. Probably use barbacide to sterilize. Thanks

ive cleaned up a bunch of DE TTOs and soak them in hot soapy water first and them clean them with a tooth brush ( q tips and tooth picks for the tight spots) and some scrubbing bubbles type cleaner.finish up with some metal polish like mothers on the flat spots. always figured by this time they were sterilized enough. JMHO

Add some pipe cleaners for getting between the bridge and head of the adjustables. I like warm vinegar for a couple minutes after the first scrubbing bubbles attack to remove soap scum, then the SB again or a citrus cleaner to neutralize the acid and then some toothpaste or the polish of your choice very gently on the gold ones. They are polished brass with a reddish enamel on them and were seldom really gold plated.

Tintin that's pretty much what I had read an planned to do... Geezer what type of vinegar are you using? An I wasn't aware of the red enamel over the brass. interesting.

Originally Posted by RollinCoal69

Tintin that's pretty much what I had read an planned to do... Geezer what type of vinegar are you using? An I wasn't aware of the red enamel over the brass. interesting.

For fast I use distilled (white) vinegar and for slower long soaks I use real cider vinegar. The enamel is a tinted clear that was dipped properly (no drip or build up at the end of the piece) and baked onto the metal.not all were done that way but many were. The real gold plated ones are really thin and may brass through with any abrasive.
~Richard