Brass cheek piece: polish, or paint?

Gary Fox

Gary Fox

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Repainting has revealed a heavy brass cheek piece each sude of the rudder head. It would shine like the sun and be a stunning feature if polished and laquered. Is a suitable coating even available? Should I just cover it up again? I am loathe to hide it but laquer mey not be practical.0A3876BC-DBA0-44C5-A5F2-4FC0C2D58B9F.jpegD0D9B089-BBE5-4D11-8C2C-2FCA0E57B817.jpeg
It is the whole white-painted shape. Not sure what to do.
 
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If you go to the bother of cleaning off the paint, polish it up with some Solvol Autosol or equivalent but do not lacquer. If you like the look of it and it cleans up well, then consider the lacquer road later. If you don't like it, prep and paint.

I have recovered old fairleads with a common drill mop polishing kit on an portable drill. The fairleads were all scored from rough sand paper and looked shit, but about 30 minutes each with the 2 soaps and plain mop, came up really well, not quite like a mirror but close too.

Give it a go and see what you think, may even just teh bits that you have uncovered.
 
Let it go green; polishing will drive you batty unless you're addicted to brasso and elbow grease and lacquer will fail and it will go green anyway.
 
penfold said:
Let it go green; polishing will drive you batty unless you're addicted to brasso and elbow grease and lacquer will fail and it will go green anyway.
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It can be painted again, 60 yrs of paint has protected it very well. Seems a shame though.
 
Polish then lacquer . Not a sensible course of action and you would be mad to do it but would please many. Nature always wants to protect itself by turning wood grey, bronze green and metal brown but that doesn't stop some boatowners from throwing in the towel.

I've had a tin of of Rylard Incralac lacquer for years which does help to slow progress for a while at least. Perhaps there are better products available now.
 
How about a good polish and then some careful epoxying, with a final coat of varnish to keep the UV off ?

I agree; showing your cheeks with a good polish would be worth travelling miles for...
 
Gary Fox said:
It can be painted again, 60 yrs of paint has protected it very well. Seems a shame though.
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Probably for the best; if you want a bare metal finish have them plated, a layer of nickel then chrome. A facsimile of polished copper may be obtainable with more high tech coating tech like TiN etc. but I suspect the cost may be prohibitive for one-offs.
 
Thanks muchly for all the sound advice, in the cold light of day I will key it with wet'n'dry, and prime with non-ferrous special metals primer. Then slap on the custard!
 
Stainless is such a wonderful material for boats but is a bit boring now.particularly tubing. Bronze, even green is nice to look at. I still would still like a s/s anchor though.
 
Polish then lacquer. I use a straightforward Halfords auto lacquer, which seems to last & last. The piece isn't subject to wear or abrasion, so should remain bright & shiny.
If it doesn't, so what?
 
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