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Old 05-24-2011, 02:58 PM
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Bob Galanter
 
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Whitefish Bay, Wi (Milwaukee)
Posts: 1,053
Nick,

Although this method does not produce a Bright High Mirror shine, this is what I do.

To get a nice brushed satin finish, I remove the tarnish and corrosion using 3M Scotch bright wheels on a polishing arbor. It leaves the finish looking like it has been buffed with steel wool, sort of a satin finish. This process takes about 1 hour on the polishinhg arbor for the exact same trim as on your 21CT55. I did the trim for the Hallicrafters CTC4 clone in just this manor yesterday.

If you however want a higher luster, the next step is to hit it with 0000 steel wool. Then I always spray with clear nitroceluolose lacquer. I have also used clear ACE brand enamel from Ace hardware with good results. The Ace brand leaves a heavier coat, but it is a bit trickier to work with on a high luster finish.

The trim I polished up yesterday had been subjected to moisture over a long period of time. As a result there are microscopic pits in the surface that are the color of copper. (brass is mostly copper, usually 90% or more) The tiny pits show up more if the surface is polished to a bright luster mirror finish so, I dedided to use a brushed satin finish because it looked better and the pits are less noticable.

I am not sure what the correct finish is. Is it a bright mirror finish or a brushed satin finish? In any event I have used the brushed satin finish on a couple other sets and it looks quite nice.

Bob
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