HOW-TO Clean Collectables, Part 2: - the Right ABRASIVE - By: Bill Harvey

It's old, it's valuable (if only to you) and it's delicate. It's
IMPERATIVE to clean it right. Here is what to use to safely
"scrub" a fine antique or collectable. This business of
preserving and protecting collectables often begins with
cleaning them. (Actually, it really begins with recognizing
valuable collectables under layers of age and crud and THEN
cleaning them so it amounts to the same thing.) Soapy water as a
solvent and a wash cloth as an abrasive work pretty well on
people-skin, don't they? Water, however, is a bit problematic on
wood. And while a wash-cloth might serve for many needs, there
are safer (both to you and whatever you are cleaning), better,
easier, more effective, and just all-round more sophisticated
things to scrub a valuable collectable or antique.

If you read nothing else I write, PAY ATTENTION here. If your
valuable collectable is real old and colorful and fussy, it is
apt to be hand painted with milk paint, gesso, tempra, or
who-knows-what old-fashioned paint. (Don't despair of old paint,
some of this stuff has -and will continue to- outlast our modern
polymeric wonder-finishes.) But you DON'T want to risk ruining
it. I am required -by law in 17 states- to tell you to try your
cleaning regime on a part of the object that doesn't show. Do
this even if you are using the mildest possible solvent.


ABRASIVES -from the gentlest to the most aggressive:

COMPRESSED GAS:

I guess this is an abrasive -ain't a solvent. I have a can on my
computer shelf for getting 'tater-chip crumbs out'a the old
keyboard. Comes with a long tube / nozzle and works great. Also
claims to be 100% ozone safe. I also have compressed air I the
shop and use it to blow dust around. (I say "around" because
when I blow the dust off of something, so much gets stirred up
that some inevitably settles back on what I blew it off of in
the first place. Sometimes the old-fashioned not-quite-instant
way works best. In this case, a bench brush and dust pan.)


VACUUM CLEANER:

Kind'a the same thing as compressed air "just going in t'other
direction. There are also more vacuums in the world then there
are air compressors. To really do it up-fancy, for delicate
fabrics and all, make yourself a frame and staple nylon
screen-door-screen around it. This will involve a trip to the
hardware story, but it can't be helped. If making a frame is the
beyond you, get a smallish piece of metal screen and fold a few
layers of duct-tape around the edge. Be a shame to have
neglected this step and ruin something all pretty and satin by
catching it on a ragged metal end of screen. If you have skin
-and all the best collectors do- the duct-tape will also make it
easier to keep your blood inside your skin because these ends
are ever-loving-sharp. Vacuum through this and buttons and bows
will stay on whatever you are cleaning.


COTTON SWABS / LITHO PADS:

These serve to rub (abrade) the goo, but I think they serve best
by putting just a little solvent where you want it and then
taking it up again once it's gotten dirty by doing its job. If
you have a good art-supply store at hand, the effort of buying
litho pads is worth it. They are truly wonderfully absorbent. If
you can't find litho pads, get some cotton balls or, (dare I
say), some feminine hygiene products.


PAINT BRUSHES:

Big ones, little ones, stiff ones, soft ones, and cheap ones,
but mostly cheep ones -they are stiffer. You pay through the
nose for a nice soft sable or camel-hair fine-art brush and you
can make beautiful pictures with it. (Well, some folks can. Not
me.) But for getting the schmutz out'a the corner, the cheep
ones might work best.


STEEL WOOL:

Pretty dull subject, but a few words on steel wool are
appropriate about now. The stuff you are apt to find at the
local hardware store and use for touching up wood items is
graded in zeros. The more -0's the finer -the less abrasive.
0000 is the finest your hardware store is apt to have and works
well for both taking stuff off and putting wax on, (more on wax
shortly). 000 is a tad more aggressive and probably best for
taking off the schmutz but is a bit too scratchy for putting wax
on. 00 is for cleaning up metal or wood that is REAL dirty. I
actually use 00 and sometimes 0 in place of sandpaper for some
applications. Don't use steel wool on latex or other
flat-painted (non-glossy) things. It's apt to leave a nasty &
indelible steel-gray stain. Try a plastic scrubbing thing from
the kitchen or a green scouring cloth -a brand-new unused one
please.


PUMICE and ROTTENSTONE:

These are just what they say they are. Very VERY finely ground
rocks that you mix-up into a slurry and rub on things. Pumice
powder is used to finish fine surfaces -one grit for satin
finished, and another -finer- grit for semi-gloss. Rotten-stone
is used to take it all the way to gloss. They are not easy to
find and truth to tell, I've never used either one. They were
all the rage before they invented 0000 steel wool (above) or
very fine grit emery cloth. Read on.


SAND / EMORY PAPER:

It would have to be pretty dirty before you want to take
sandpaper to it, but there are things to be learned. For
starters, sand-paper comes in some pretty fire grits and emery
paper comes in even finer. Grit is backwards -the bigger the
number, the finer the grit. I use 120 grit sandpaper to get
started on raw wood and sometimes go as high as 220 when I am
finishing wood a piece prior to stain and finish. Emery paper is
just getting started at 200 and runs up to 1200, but it's likely
you will not find much higher then 600 at the local hardware
store.


Another thing to be learned from these paint accessories is that
wet sanding is a wonderfully labor saving way to go about it.
Emery paper is made to be water-proof so use water. But what
about water on wood? Isn't this a bad idea? you ask. Dang right.
So use regular old sandpaper and paint thinner. Just be sure to
put out your cigar and do it outside. Works extra great on
painted wood. The paint has glue in it and this clogs up the
sandpaper pretty quick if you do it dry. Wet sanding prevents
this.


What I use is a flat shallow Tupperware thing holding 1/2" or so
of the thinner. When one sanding pad gets clogged, I put it in
the thinner and pull out one that has been soaking. A little
swish in the thinner and I am back in business. Wet sanding with
sandpaper also seems to cut much faster. Don't know why, just
does so I don't have to sand as long. When I am done, I put the
lid back on the Tupperware &sandpaper and put it all away.


SAND BLASTING:

This is as far as I'm going to up the scale of aggressive
abrasion. It's also about as far as anyone COULD go. I have to
say it again: if you clean many a collectable, no matter how
grungy and disgusting it was and no matter how nice and shiny
you get it, it will NOT be as valuable as it was when it was
dirty. Clearly sand blasting is not for most -nor even for very
many collectables at all, but if it's something like a rusty old
wood stove from the flea-market, it might be just the ticket.
Haul it down to the gritty side of town and have someone
sand-blast it. But you probably want to be there when he does it
-entirely possible that he will get it so clean and shiny that
he will wear through in places if the rust was thick enough. I
suspect that all else being equal, this is one of those places
where too little is better then too much.


WAX -the Curator's Best Friend:

Wax is neither an abrasive nor a solvent, but it is such good
stuff I have to talk about it. I use it on much of my woodwork
-0000 steel-wool and furniture paste-wax is often the last step
before I send something off to a customer. The steel wool takes
off the last tiny boo-boos and the wax makes it nice on your
fingertips. I use two flavors -light and dark- and have to order
the dark from a special (over-priced) wood-working supply place.
Turns out that grocery stores stock the stuff in about a dozen
colors. They call it 'shoe-polish', but what it is, is, is a
good quality hard-wax paste wax with lots of pigmenting. Bunch
cheaper then the special stuff I buy too. Consider the above
example of a wood stove back from the sand-blaster. Is isn't so
much chrome-bumper shiny after sandblasting as it is gray and
vaguely sparkly. The next step might be to hit it with the
shoe-polish. Hit it hard and use lots of it. For that matter,
anything you have that is either cast-iron or steel might need
nothing more then shoe-polish to bring it from the proverbial
'flea-market-junk' category to the 'family-heirloom' category.

It's old, it's valuable (if only to you) and it's delicate. It's IMPERITIVE to clean it right. Here is what to use to safely "scrub" a fine antique or collectable. This business of preserving and protecting collectables often begins with cleaning them.

Bill Harvey is an expert cabinet maker and the Author of href="http://www.home-museum.com/How-To-Arts.htm">COLLECTOR's
HOW-TO - a series of useful articles for the dedicated collector or hobbyist to use in protecting and displaying valuable items. He is also the owner of Home-Museum.com.