styleNorth

I have to apologize to styleNorth reader John who wrote to me months ago for advice on a Blue Magic project that was dogging him. I replied right away with the essence of what I’ll share here, but I told John to watch for this post and, well, it’s taken awhile: Sorry, John.

“I’m wondering if you have any tips on technique that could speed up the process of stripping brass plate?” he asked. “So far I’m about 6 hours and one tub of Blue Magic into this, but that seems a little excessive. Perhaps the thickness of brass plating is the issue.”

More likely it was the grade of the steel wool, which was probably my fault for suggesting Super Fine in the original post.

Truth be told, I’d been struggling with a stripping job of my own (see after the jump) so I decided to experiment with steel wool grades as per the chart below from the terrific website, How Stuff Works:

No. 3, Coarse, for paint and varnish removal; removing paint spots from resilient floors.
No. 2, Medium Course, for removing scratches from brass; removing paint spots from ceramic tile; rubbing floors between finish coats.
No. 1, Medium, for rust removal; cleaning glazed tiles; removing marks from wood floors; with paint and varnish remover, removing finishes.
No. 0, Medium fine, for brass finishing; cleaning tile; with paint and varnish remover, removing stubborn finishes.
No. 00, Fine, with linseed oil, satinizing high-gloss finishes.
No. 000, Extra fine, for removing paint spots or stains from wood; cleaning polished metals; rubbing between finish coats.
No. 0000, Super fine, for final rubbing of finish; stain removal.

I’ve been working on some lamps but the plating in the grooves, above left, just didn’t want to come up. So I backed up to No. 1 medium steel wool and voila, it didn’t take long for the plate to lift with the assistance of some needle-nose pliers which helped to keep the steel wool inside the slots.

What I’ve subsequently discovered is that steel wool is something of a DIY cure-all: it works on metal, porcelain and even on wood, especially on wood. The before and after shots below are courtesy of Kitka Design Toronto where John and Juli used steel wool and teak oil to revive a set of stools. Tip: always work with the direction of the wood grain.

Then, while Mike and I were in Montreal, we met Angie Martzoukos, co-owner of Ambiance Eclektic (514.564.6626) and the eastern Canada distributor of the Briwax line of woodworking products, including the finest grade of steel wool I’ve ever come across (box in the lead shot was $13). Angie proudly showed me the table below, which she restored without stripping the original finish using this ultra-fine steel wool and Briwax Danish Oil.

I was talking with INabstracto owner Kate Eisen recently and she remarked that steel wool was a miracle product: “People don’t seem to know how little effort it actually takes,” she said. “Fine steel wool works like magic on scratches, especially with Scott’s Liquid Gold, which is another trade secret.”