A. Ive followed this thread with interest, wanting to clean several antique Edwardian brass door handles and finger plates. They needed cleaning up, but through the grime came the pink. I tried rubbing a lot with Brasso which made a negligible difference. I couldnt get the chemicals Goran suggested, but tried pickling a H2O2 and white vinegar mix, to no avail. In the end I went a bit nuclear, but it seems to have paid off. I remembered I had some Ferric Chloride [on eBay or Amazon] solution from years ago that I used to etch copper circuit boards. I poured some into a plastic container and then got a clean sponge and carefully soaked some up (wear chemical/plastic gloves [on eBay or Amazon] and eye protection [on eBay or Amazon]) and gently rubbed around all the places that were pink. The copper dissolves very quickly using this method, but you end up with quite a black-looking piece of brass. I actually went over the whole piece in this way, etching out plenty of bits here and there. I panicked a bit that Id ruined it, but then I used a metal polish called “Peek” [on eBay or Amazon] which is available in the UK on Amazon. Its a blue-coloured paste rather than the liquid of Brasso.
Well I have to say that Peek works a treat — much better than Brasso. Took a fair amount of rubbing — I initially used a non-scratch pan scourer to get the worst off, then the sponge side and then a softer cloth. All the handles have come up a treat – no pink tinges and a deep yellow brass colour. The handles are quite old so have plenty of surface scratches which I wont polish out as I dont want them to look brand new, but Im really pleased with the results.
Q. Having improperly soaked dirty brass (originally lacquered) bed fittings in a toilet bowl cleaner (HCl), a reddish pink copper color predominates the originally golden yellow polished finish. This red/pink color can be reduced by (excessive!) rubbing with a Scotch Brite pad. Is there a simpler chemical treatment that can reduce the elbow grease?
A. Hi Neville. My limited experience has been that commercial copper polishes like Brasso [on eBay or Amazon] will change that raw look back to the mellow look.
A. You have dissolved the zinc from the brass, leaving only copper. To get the brass colour back, you will need to polish off the copper; if it is not too bad, Brasso or Duraglit [on eBay or Amazon] will do it. Do not use an abrasive agent unless the colour is persistent; if you do have to use an abrasive, you will need to polish out the scratches you will leave in the brass. Cleaning brass is not as easy as many people think, and a lot of damage gets done by people using the wrong systems. I suggest you should use a professional cleaning agent such as Brasso, etc., and do not try to take short cuts with strong acids and alkalies.
Q. I have just cleaned years of black stuff from a very old small ornate brass article with lots of very hard to reach nooks and crannies. The use of chemicals has left a pinkish tinge in the rougher parts, which I have tried to polish off with Brasso but the polish cant get into the nooks and crannies. Ive tried a toothbrush but this does not seem to work either. Can someone recommend how I can polish off the pink from this article, I am reluctant to use any wire wool, etc., because the article is so old and ornate.
Q. I am restoring some solid brass window catches and began by soaking them in white vinegar [in bulk on eBay or Amazon] & salt. That removed the dirty dark brown coating but they were still rather greasy to the touch so I soaked them in warm, soapy water with a bit of ammonia [on eBay or Amazon] which removed the grease but left them a pink colour instead of yellow. I have spent hours googling this issue looking for a chemical solution rather than manual removal. As on this thread, many people suggest using Brasso to get the pink back to yellow but its not having any effect on these catches that are pink so Im still looking for the right method to get them back to yellow from pink.
Any suggestions would be very welcome. Fortunately I only soaked a few of them in the ammonia and the others are still brownish but these ones do come up yellow using Brasso.
A. Brasso is okay. Try 5% ammonium citrate solution, pH 9 (50 gms citric acid [on eBay or Amazon] , 1 lit water, add ammonia [on eBay or Amazon] until pH is 9). Good luck!
I have just removed some of the brass hardware from the 5% solution and it is is beautiful yellow again. I buffed them with ScotchBrite [on eBay or Amazon] and Brasso [on eBay or Amazon] and they look as good as new. They only needed a few minutes in the 5% ammonium citrate solution. So easy!
Q. I know most people want the brass to return to yellow after etching or pickling but Ive etched some brass and really like the pink colours. Will they stay if I leave it and decide not to clean it back to brass colour?
A. Copper coating on your brass objects is very thin (you removed zinc from surface of it ), clear coat can help a little bit but best solution is copper plating. Hope it helps and good luck!
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Q. I need assistance.. PLEASE! I purchased a beautiful 1980s Louis Vuitton Toiletry case, and the person whom I purchased this from, did something to the brass zipper.. it is PINK! She wont tell me what she did. I have cleaned so many of these products with Brasso and they shine so goldenly. She said, she used Brasso, but I dont quite buy it. Perhaps she left the Brasso on too long? Can I restore the pink zippers back to gold? Please! I am ready to get my science experiment on! Thank you all in advance for your help.
Hi Maria. Please see Lizs problem, Gorans suggestion, and Lizs rave review of how well it worked and so easily. I dont think anyone will be able to improve on it for you; but please get back to us after you try it. Best of luck.
Q. OK, I have never done this before. How do I mix that solution? Where do I get the products? I know, might be silly. I dont want to blow my fingers up! 🙂
A. Hi Maria. We included links to where you can get the citric acid and household ammonia that Goran mentioned, and pH paper. But the internet, like a library, is a one-room schoolhouse where people of all experience levels can read about mixes & procedures they may or may not be qualified to follow. Maybe you can find a friend with some chemistry experience? >Safely working with chemicals is something you should be taught hands-on. Although citric acid and household ammonia dont sound especially dangerous to me, nobody can explain to a person whose experience level they dont know, how to safely buy, store, handle, identify, and mix chemicals they have no understanding of. But you surely must not do so without wearing goggles [on eBay or Amazon] and rubber gloves [on eBay or Amazon], and with good outdoor ventilation, and unless youve had at least high school chemistry, understand how to follow Gorans advice of how to adjust the pH to 9, and your work area is free of pets & small children who could get into them, and unless youve read all warnings on the containers 🙂
When brass corrodes, it can undergo dezincification, a process in which zinc is lost and copper is left behind. Mild dezincification may simply cause a cosmetic change, namely, the colour of the surface turning from yellow to pink, but severe dezincification can lead to the weakening of brass and even its perforation.
Is citric acid the same thing as ammonium nitrate?
Q. Is citric acid the same thing as ammonium nitrate? Im trying to turn my brass hardware from the pink tint back to the yellowish gold.
A. No, Mila, ammonium nitrate is certainly not citric acid. Please have a friend with chemistry experience read Budijas instructions carefully and help you with this. And also please carefully read the warnings to Maria L about messing with chemicals if youre not a chemist. Even household chemicals are dangerous 🙂
Q. Ted, so youre saying citric acid and household ammonia will work as well as ammonium nitrate for taking the pink tint from brass?
A. Hi again Mila. Nobody on this page said that ammonium nitrate will take the pink tint from brass? … but perhaps someone somewhere did? Sorry, I dont know what youre referring to 🙂
Liz asked how to remove the pink tint, Goran said to make ammonium citrate by mixing ammonia with citric acid, and Liz said is worked great. Thats all I can say about the subject. Good luck!
Q. I am having trouble with the brass feet of a clock Im restoring. At the suggestions of a clock restorer I cleaned the feet then soaked them in a 5% ammonium citrate solution with a ph of 9. The feet came quite clean but turned a pink copper color. (The lighter pressed brass columns and lions heads came out perfect) The next suggestion was to Brasso the feet with 0000 steel wool [on eBay or Amazon]. That only made the pink worse and seemed to leave the feet with a copper plate in some spots and raw black metal in others. The next rabbit hole I went down was to pickle the feet in a 3 part hydrogen peroxide to 1 part white vinegar solution. This quickly dissolved most of the copper plate but started to heavily etch the metal and leave it black with much of the detail etched off.
So now I know the feet are ruined and that doesnt bother me. Im just very curious if theres a way to bring back the brass color from this point in the process.
A. Hi Austin. Im on record on this site a dozen times discouraging people from trying to guess what a finish is from its appearance …
Nonetheless, Im gonna go out on a limb and say those feet might be cast iron rather than brass? Have you tried a magnet on them?
Q. Yes. I checked that first thing. And then checked again. I kept going back to that same thought, these must be plated. They are non-ferrous. The paper I read by a chemist who also happens to be jewelry maker described the 3:1 H2O2:vinegar pickle. Another clock restorer referenced this article and his success with the process. The only part they tried that I didnt was a final rinse and scrub in Sparex pickling compound [on eBay or Amazon] or 5% sulfuric acid.
A. Dear Austin! Your object is probably copper plated zinc or tin alloy. Ammonium citrate at pH 9 solution is perfect for real brass, not for copper or brass plated zinc or tin. In that case better solution is 47,5 gms sodium gluconate [on eBay or Amazon] / 47,6 gms citric acid [on eBay or Amazon] and 4,9 gms tartaric acid [on eBay or Amazon] / 1 lit water (according to USPT 4,264,418). Hope it helps and good luck.
Q. I have tried to follow the instructions to soak brass door finger plates which have turned pink. The only pH detector I can buy locally are tablets for fish tanks. Using the right proportions of citric acid, water and 20% ammonia solution never budged past neutral pH. Eventually there separated out a greasy yellow substance which floated. This had no effect whatsoever on the brass. What have I done wrong. I tested the pH tablets with straight 20% and the solution changed to purple, indicating that the tablets were accurate
A. Hi Margaret. What did you do to make them turn pink in the first place? If they were already pink when you first saw them, is there a chance that theres a lacquer clearcoat on them? But order pH paper [on eBay or Amazon] by mail if necessary; trying to do chemistry without pH paper or meter is wrong, and who even knows what else is in those tablets that could be messing things up.
Q. thanks Ted. They do have a lacquer coat and had turned pink under the coating. My painter restored some; I have about 14 doors in the house with brass knobs and finger plates on each side. I thought the plates were copper but he restored them to a beautiful brass using a polishing wheel and rouge. I used lacquer thinner/remover [on eBay or Amazon] to remove the lacquer and and salt solution to remove the tarnish. Even using brass or purple metal polish does not remove all the pink. The knobs are filthy but not pink and all the lacquer has been worn off. As a side note I am reluctant to re-lacquer the finger plates as it is such a pain to remove but equally it is difficult to keep the tarnish off. Do you have any advice for any of my problems? I also have window latches of brass. Thanks. Margaret (Actually I just reread my bottle and it is 20 g/l which makes it 2% not 20%. I tried again with a smaller quantity and got the pH up but still no effect on pinkness, only some tarnish removal.
A. I removed copper color from the brass material through following process and its fine for me. 1. vinegar [in bulk on eBay or Amazon] + 5% sulfuric acid followed by the Lemishine [on eBay or Amazon] plus dish washing liquid for the shine. 2. 5% sulfuric acid + 3% peroxide [on eBay or Amazon] but due to oxidizing process the brass gets dull.
Q. Ive inherited an ATMOS clock from the 50s. Ive tested the brass surrounding the glass frame: it is solid, not plated brass. Ive removed a lot of tarnish using some ignorant processes along with Weimans brass cleaner/polish; ended up with an inconsistent finish-yellowish/brass speckles and streaks and pink in places. I tried Gorans solution to no avail. Now I have very clean brass but its not looking great. I suspect the brass frame has a lacquer top layer in which some of it is present, some gone. What can I now do to make this piece beautiful brass again? How can I determine the presence of lacquer and can/should I remove it? Also, what is the best way to buff/polish this? Thanks very much, I appreciate your help.
Q. I have a brass plate rudder from an antique boat. It has random pink spots, like acne or chicken pox throughout the rudder. Any tips on how to get the pink spots out and get a consistent color.
A. Hi Richard. Goran suggested 5% ammonium citrate to get rid of pink color, and Liz G. gave a rave review of how easy it was and how well it worked. I wouldnt hunt for alternatives til I tried it 🙂 Read the safety warnings on the chemical containers and this whole page. Good luck.
Q. Hello, I cast my own alloys. I use a ratio of 95% brass to 5% aluminium and usually that gives me a beautiful golden metal that I cast into weird and wonderful things. Recently my casts have been coming out with this pink finish which Ive learnt is my fault as Ive overheated my crucible and Ive burnt off the zinc. Can anyone please tell me how much zinc I need to add back into my metal to give me the golden finish that I was so accustomed to seeing? Many thanks and kind regards, Matthew
so your brass is pink- how to fix it
FAQ
How do you get pink off brass?
How do you remove red oxidation from brass?
What does oxidized brass look like?
Why does brass change color?
Why is my Brass rusting?
Both of these conditions in brass will be heightened by high humidity; dust and grime can thus cause active corrosion as they will hold moisture onto the surface of the brass. High levels of ammonia can also cause corrosion; this will result in bluish deposits on the brass. 3. Denting or Abrasions
What does pink color in mucus indicate?
Pink mucus may indicate a small amount of blood mixed with the mucus. This can be due to minor irritation in the respiratory or nasal passages. Causes can include dry air, nosebleeds, or vigorous nose blowing. If pink mucus persists or is accompanied by other concerning symptoms, consult a healthcare provider for evaluation.
How to get brass colour back?
To get the brass colour back, you will need to polish off the copper; if it is not too bad, Brasso or Duraglit will do it. Do not use an abrasive agent unless the colour is persistent; if you do have to use an abrasive, you will need to polish out the scratches you will leave in the brass.
How do you know if Brass is corroded?
Safe corrosion will occur if the brass has been kept clean and dry. If it is brownish or black this will be due to oxidization of the copper which occurs when exposed to air; this a natural phenomenon and is non-destructive. This is usually called “tarnish” and can be removed by careful cleaning and polishing.