How Do You Keep your Bronze Looking Nice?

[Johann]

Hello all.

Still working on the rebuild/refitment of our CP-19, hull# 042. Anyway, I've stripped off the portholes (portlights?), took them apart and ran them across my old bench grinder with a wire wheel on it and they look so good my wife thought I painted them with a 'rattlecan'. Since that worked out so well, I took all of the other bronze pieces off and had at them too. The big question is, how do I keep the bronze pieces looking like polished brass, instead of letting them settle back into the brown patina with a green tinge that I found them in? I used Brasso on the parts to brighten them even more and keep them from tarnishing from handling them, but I have a feeling there has got to be something better out there that is a bit more robust.

Thanks,
Johann.

[john walker]

constant polishing

[spaul]

Hi John,
I'm interested in this also as I have a cp27/2 with lots of bronze portholes. Either on this forum or another one I communicated with another sailor regarding powder coating of metals. There are kits that aren't too expensive and there is a clear coating that sounds perfect. You electrostatically depost a dry coating powder and then you bake it where it runs clear and hardens. So anything you bake has to withstand 400 deg F I think.
There is clear acrylic in a spray can, there is clear laquer in a spray can which is the classic way to do this. I haven't started this project because I just know it's going to take a long time. I do plan on persuing the clear powder coating idea though.
I don't have the web sites but a google for powder coating kits might do it. I know auto stores and catalogues sell them (kits). Keep us all informed as I don't think wax is what we want to use. I have no idea as the the UV resistance of the powder coating in clear since the outsides of the ports will be exposed to lots of UV. This would be a great test subject by the way.

Steve Paul
cp27/2
IM PAUL SIVE

[Craig Weis]

I enjoy the bronze with a dull green tinge. skip.

[Johann]

Thanks for responding John Walker, Steve Paul and Skip.

At this time, I have been polishing the bronze with Brasso every so often and that's been doing the job. As for the powder coating, I had worked with it before, but by the time I was seriously toying with setting up to do it, I had already decided to mount the portholes and the rest of the bronze components. Times a-wastin', you know...

Steve, I have had some experience with clear and colored powder coating (while restoring a '65' Volvo P1800 a few years back) and it isn't too hard, but you do need to come up with some kind of an outdoors bake-out oven and quite a bit of patience. The first time I tried baking a small piece in our kitchen, the fumes were surprisingly strong and the wife wanted to kill me. The place I got my kit from was Caswell Plating.

http://www.caswellplating.com/

They are a great resource for powder coating, metal plating, cleaning, buffing and restoration supplies, of which I have bought several different items (no affiliation, just pleased with their selection, prices and service).

I would be leery of using a rattlecan of clear spray, because it tends break down quickly and starts to flake off of the coated item in very short order when sitting in direct sun.

I have found that the UV resistance of clear powdercoat is pretty good, but it does need an occasional waxing to give Nature something expendable to work on, but it doesn't seem to suffer from yellowing, cracking, peeling or crazing as other clearcoating methods do. The wax becomes necessary to help prevent the slight white hazing that breaks up the luster of the clear powdercoat over time (as in years).

In short, I could have powder coated all of the bronze pieces, but just didn't want to gear up for it, get the kit and spend the time to do it.

Johann.

[Johann]

Hi Skip, I can understand liking the patina that aged bronze will eventually acquire, but after working hard to get the bronze parts to look like this;

http://com-pacowners.com/gallery2/displayimage.php?album=26&pos=15

And this;

http://com-pacowners.com/gallery2/displayimage.php?album=26&pos=17

It is hard for me to let go....

Johann.

[Craig Weis]

I think P-COAT is NOT for home use...

1~It's metal prep! Clean ,clean, clean.

2~All oils and soils off the work. Certain chemicals work best for a particular substrate. It's a matter of pH's.

Iron, A phosphoric acid chemically removes an iron ion and redeposits it back onto the substrate, [but only after the work is squeeky clean. That is a non water break test over the substrate.]

Aluminum, Zinc Chromate bonds to an Aluminum substrate, isolating that substrate from salts found in water and air.

Bronze I don't know of any particular coating to enhance the life of the P-Coating.

3~Dry the work. No water to boil off. No touch the work with your oily hands.

4~Cool the work. I P-Coated thousands of Hermann-Miller rods a week for the furniture industry and we would cut our threads 0.004 under size to allow for P-Coat build-up in the threads.

5~Clears go on looking white. Apply evenly with out clumping.

6~Time at temperature for a cure. Test a sample with scratch and pull with tape test, and a 100 double rubs using a Q-Tip with MEK test to assure full cure of P-Coat. Bare in mind a #40 gloss is dead flat while a # 80 gloss is considered hi-shine. Rarely do #100 gloss coating look all that good 'cause they tend to hi-light
every flaw.

7~If you screw it up one can alway burn off the coating [read bake-off] in a self cleaning oven. HOWEVER send the wife out to shop while the house is aired out. Oh wait a minute. scratch that these parts have rubber seals so forget the whole P-COAT IDEA...
A poly-Ester blend should last outdoors for many years... skip.

[Johann]

Hi Skip;

Actually, in my case the P-Coat may have been viable because I had stripped the portholes down to 'parade rest', to include the seals/gaskets.

I'll be looking into this possibility a bit further.

Johann.

[spaul]

Thanks for the education guys. My bronze has reached the mature look and as you do I would love for it to shine. Making it shine would take a lot of time away from sailing so I think I'm happy with my aquired patina, it kind of looks like me just a little bit.
Great discussion I did learn a few things as I often do.

Steve

[thedavo]

Hi folks, I'm Dave and was the one that spaul was communicating with concerning the powdercoating. I have abandoned my quest to powdercoat the portlights as I found it to simply too much work for the limited time I have to work on the boat. I have too many things on the list that are higher priority. I did want to mention a couple things regarding powdercoating. Most colors are done a 400 degrees F but the clear coats are cured at 350 otherwise they tend to take on a yellowish hue. Also, you should not use the home oven. I was using a simple little toaster oven that I bought from a second hand store. For larger items I salvaged an abandoned oven from a home that was being remodeled. Getting the bronze clean enough took forever to get that new look like you see in the Com-Pac brochures. Then I would strip the polish off before powdercoating. Really, and truly I loved the look of the final product but the time factor outweighed it. So, I have stripped off the powdercoating with paint remover and it is rapidly catching up to the appearance of the remaining portlights. Maybe someday when the priority list is just about finished I may revisit the idea, but simply not practical now for me. Dave.