An Altar Guild Member's Guide to Brass Polishing

All of that brass needs polishing! Image credit: Ann Quay Rushing

Hello, my name is Ann Quay and I am the head of Altar Guild.  One of altar guild’s responsibilities is to care for the brass at St. John. I like to polish the brass for the Christmas season; this blog post will show how we make it shine.

Equipment

• Tube of Simichrome Polish or any other brass polishing past
• Toothbrush
• Clean cloth rags that you don’t mind throwing out.
• Newspaper or some other table protection. 
• The brass objects
• To remove wax we use Fusion Thumb scraper

​Please note:  Tarnish is the result of metal (in this case brass) chemically reacting to air.  To remove the tarnish, you are essentially removing a layer of the metal.  Do this enough, and you will remove the metal from the object, or wear away any inscriptions or decorations. That is why my philosophy when it comes to polishing is "Don’t aim for perfection."  We polish as little as is necessary to achieve a shine. This is especially important for anything the is plated.

Steps

1. Lay out the newspaper or table protection.  Polishing can get messy, and brass can scratch some surfaces. 
2. Remove any wax or other stuff that may have accumulated on the brass.  Polish will not be abrasive enough to remove this.  Be careful to not scratch the brass while doing so.  
3. Place a small amount of polish paste on a toothbrush and rub it onto a section.  It is always better to use too little and add more as you go than to have too much. I usually start from the top and work down, but working bottom to top works just as well. 
4. Once you have applied paste, take the clean cloth rag and rub it away. Make sure to remove all the paste.  If you leave it on, it will be difficult to remove in the future.  
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until the entire object has been polished. If the rag becomes too dirty, throw it out and get a new one.  
6. Marvel at all your hard work.