Do any brain trust alumni from this exalted forum have any recommendations for renewing the 30 year old + caps on these columns?
I dont know of any chemicals off the top of my head to just throw on and itd be brand new but could you not just polish it especially if it’s only the 2? A simple compound and polish wouldnt take 20 minutes to do both
I was going to chime in earlier, but I thought someone with experience might have answered you. I didn’t want to answer because that patina is brownish in color, and copper is usually blue-green colors, but it isn’t 100%. Most people want copper to patina, and you can seal it once it does. Anyway, an acid will remove copper patina, but it will begin to patina again once the air and water hit it. The old way of doing pots and pans was to use salt, vinegar, and flour. Basically the flour thickens it, the salt is melted into it providing a grit and the acid does the work. vinegar is a weak acid. I included a link for your perusal, as I have watched countless videos on how to make brand new copper patina quickly. This link will also show you how to put patina back onto something if you remove it accidently. I would call eacochem, but I think one restore would do it (as it removes copper runoff on brick and stone). I’ve removed copper runoff, I have shined brass and copper, but I have never tried to remove a perfectly good patina on an object before.
Good luck to you.
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After going to sleep and waking back up and taking another look, are you sure this is copper? Anodized aluminum perhaps? Possibly another painted metal?
One of my guys was building homes 30 years ago in that neighborhood and tells me that the caps, of which there are actually many hundreds, certainly looked coppery shiny when new.
That green certainly looks like the patina from copper, yet I, too, question the brown oxidation. Maybe I just take some Brasso to it and see what happens.
After reading the link you shared in an earlier post (thanks @Dirtyboy), there may be iron impurities that cause that brown oxidation. I think I’ll try to polish the brown first. I’ll post my results.
