Reddit reviews Mohawk Lacquer for Brass Gloss M103-0500

I went thru a few tutorials, howto's and forums about forcing patinas and worked out how I can do it. I Googled "brass forced patina" and "brass salt ammonia patina" and "ammonia forced patina" etc... I just consumed a few articles til I got an idea of roughly what to do, then jumped in. Pretty sure there are YouTube videos, but they won't give you much more.

A big thing is how long you keep them in the corrosive environment. I couldn't check on the pen til about 6 hours later so it was lucky that it turned into a fairly good result. Maybe 10 or 12 hours would be prettier.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You basically seal off anything you don't want altered, like interiors and threads. Cover with salt, or coarse salt, or even kitty litter. The parts that are salted are the parts that will corrode less. And the parts around the salted area will corrode. Those are the little black outlines in the pen.

Suspend the pieces so they don't touch anything, in a sealed environment (don't fuck with ammonia vapor [or lacquer vapor])

Careful of contact between pieces or with saturated paper, of drips accumulating on pieces, and of over-corroding so the pieces get pitted. I don't know how long it would take for that to happen.

Clean the piece well. Mine was a couple days old. If yours has a natural patina already, maybe go over it with high grit sandpaper or 0000 steel wool.

I used this lacquer, but by no means is it the only, nor even the best option. But it works. I got some on my fingernail trying to get rid of a drip. It's significantly harder and more durable than nail polish.

I use this:

https://www.amazon.com/Mohawk-Home-M103-0500-Brass-Lacquer/dp/B003BG53EI

for other stuff around the house, but did not use it on the CG. (By the time I realized I was getting patches, it was too late!) I ultimately used Flitz to polish off the remnants of the antiqued coating, and went back to a shiny brass look.

The white balance is off on that photo, but it looks like the plating is already stripped down to the brass. You've got a long-comb Gillette NEW head with a thick handle from a Tech there. The base metal of the cap and the handle are a rosy copper color that I believe is a red brass, and the base metal of the guard plate and the neck on the handle are yellow brass.

Personally, I love the two-tone look of the base metal. Considering its state, I would polish the bejeezus out of it with something like Maas or Flitz -- heck, you could even just pull out the Brasso, since you wouldn't be worried about plating loss -- and get the brass nice and bright. You can even go as far as to lacquer it once it's clean to keep it nice and shiny. (Here's an example of a brass lacquer. I haven't used that brand myself, so it's not a recommendation just an example.)

You can also replate it, though it'd be easier and cheaper to just find a NEW in good shape if you decide you really like it -- there are plenty out there.