Has anyone ever put their brass frame, backstrap, and bottom metal in a tumbler to clean it up a little? Thinking about doing it with mine as it has become very tarnished and nothing will remove it. I know some people like this look, but I would like to clean it up. Any ideas?

Get some brasso !

Well.... I went ahead and did it anyway, it is looking pretty nice. It is still very dark around the cylinder back of the frame and on the front near the barrel. Will brasso help remove these stains?

Lad,

Some thoughts.

The reason brass cleans up is due to a physical scrubbing of the metal (even Brasso - an excellent product - has abrasives in its formula). The "cleaning" fluid usually added to a walnut medium performs two functions; a chemical one to react with the discoloration, and a mechanical one to keep the minute particles of metal from "loading" up the walnut (like using oil on a honing stone).

My concern would be that small particles of walnut media might remain on metal parts, or in small slits where two pieces might mate. Could this later create an abrasive situation which might degrade tolerances between moving parts???

I too like shiny things!! But am also concerned with safe and proper functioning.

Not sure if this added anything useful, just some areas to ponder.

Mike

Well, I tumbled it for a while, and they came out rather shiny. However, I do not like this look and am headed right now to the range to dirty it up a bit. Michael, I understand your point, it took about 15 minutes with pipe cleaners to get all the media out of the frame.

black powder fired in your weapon will patina the brass in no time all by itself.

Brass polish with a cotton wheel, jeweler's rouge or some of the other compounds available at your local building supply. Read the labels on both the wheels and the compounds!

You don't want to get too aggressive!

Rouge on a soft wheel will polish. Some of the other compounds on a harder wheel will "cut" into the brass.

Learn to live with the patina. Some actually work at getting it to patina.