HOW-TO Clean Collectables, Part 3: Painted and Metallic Items. - By: Bill Harvey

FINE PRINT:
If it's valuable you MUST know what you are doing. If you don't know what you are doing, follow my advice on PRESERVATION as best you can and leave well enough alone. Or HIRE A PRO to clean it. Most things will not be hurt by carefully storing them dirty. Store it carefully till you can afford to hire a pro -and if this takes 20 or 40 years, so be it. It will just be all that much more valuable by then. (Except fabric. Probably best to clean fabric before you tuck it away.)

PAINTED ITEMS:
The problem here is that whatever solvent is OK to clean paint might mess up the object the paint is on, -'ticularally if it's painted on wood. Plastic, on the other hand, is chemically closer to paint -so what ever dissolves the schmutz is apt to have some similar bad effect on the plastic underneath. This brings up another issue and that has to do with just what kind of paint it is. Paints are basically pretty colorful powders suspended in some liquid that dries into something solid. For some of the very oldest paints, this might be something out of the pantry -milk or eggs, for example. Lest this seem a little tentative to you, ponder what fun it is to clean a dish with ossified egg dried onto it. The point here is -as always- go slowly and look very carefully at the surface -both the painted parts and the naked parts as you clean.

PAINT -on wood:
Paint thinner. Go slowly here -unless the paint is milk-paint (dead flat -often on Shaker or Dutch woodwork), paint thinner is probably not doing to dissolve it. (Or at least dissolve it very quickly.)
Artist's brush or cotton swabs etc.

If you are not sure about the paint, try water first, but be sure to dry it very carefully after you have cleaned the painted surface. This way the grain will not have as much of a chance to raise. Use a hair-dryer.
* Old Paint: If a old piece of painted furniture is looking a little dull, and it's too valuable -or too much work- to refinish it, use some mineral oil and elbow-grease.

PAINT -on plastic:
Distilled water or Triton 100 detergent
Artist's brush or cotton swabs etc.
Dry it quickly -especially if it's celluloid. (See Vintage Plastic below.)

PAINT -on metal:
Distilled water or Triton 100 detergent
Artist's brush or cotton swabs etc.
Dry the water off (before it can rust the metal) with a hair dryer.

PAINT-enameled metal:
Paint thinner.
Artist's brush or cotton swabs etc.
This stuff is pretty bullet-proof -being as it is what amounts to a thin layer of glass-like fired clay.



METAL (unpainted etc.):
Distilled water or Triton 100 detergent
Artist's brush or cotton swabs etc.
Dry the water off (before it can rust the metal) with a hair dryer.

Cast iron -pots and pans -old mechanical banks
Paint thinner -or lacquer thinner for the stubborn schmutz, but don't use lacquer thinner on the painted parts.
Steel wool or appropriately fine (or course) sandpaper.
Pumice powder.
Be careful around the painted bits -like on old banks. See Painted Metal above.

Have at it. If you are sanding or steel-wooling by hand, it's likely your patience will give out before you do any damage. But don't drop it -cast iron is brittle. Dry it quickly if you use water -for example if you have been wet sanding.

Wet sanding with emery-cloth is a terrific way to take metal down to a perfect gleam. It's also the BEST way to prepare steel etc. for a nice rusting.

Black shoe-polish is a great way to fuss-up black cast iron, but don't cook with it ya' big dummy.

Silver:
50 / 50 acetone / alcohol mixture
Ultra-fine polishing abrasive i.e., "Powdered chalk" in the garden / hardware store, and "Whiting" in the art-supply store.
Let it try on cloth -not a rubber mat or rack, and NEVER put rubber bands around your silver wear when you store it.

*NEVER use cling wrap on silver. it out-gasses chlorine which etches (destroys) silver.

* Pewter: It has a low melting point and tarnishes easily in a dishwasher -clean it by hand. Use silver or brass polish, or a 2 T's ammonia in soapy water, or mild scouring powder in olive oil.

*Rubber and silver don't mix. Rubber makes silver tarnish faster. Wear plastic gloves when you clean

*Chlorine and ammonia don't mix. For that matter don't mix lye, rust remover, toilet-bowl cleaners, or vinegar (vinegar?) with anything! Except water. Maybe. Outside. On a windy day. And then do it down wind. Ammonia and chlorine gas are poisonous. Mixing lye (toilet-bowl-cleaner) and water gives of heat -so much heat that it can boil the water and boil over pretty violently. A boiling concentrate alkaline solution in your face is the stuff of blindness and lifetime scars. Always add the acid (or base) to the water, not the other way around.

In parts 1 and 2, I talked about the assorted things you might find under your kitchen sink -soaps and solvents and such as well as the rubby-scratchy things like steel wool. In part 3 I take up just what the right solvent and / or abrasive might be for painted and metallic things. Part 4 addresses organic items like plastic, fabric and wood, etc.

Bill Harvey is an expert wood-worker making drawer and display cases for collectors and museums. He is also author of COLLECTOR's HOW-TO - a series of articles for the dedicated collector or hobbyist to use in protecting and displaying valuable items. All this can be found at
Home-Museum.com