I clean the metals about twice a year, then let an even patina build up.
I use a mixture of salt and vinegar. It cleans the brass, doesn’t smell, and leaves a shiny (better than new) protective metal coating. So some patina occur, but slowly and with an even brass tinge.
The mix is not abrasive and of course not more toxic than your salad dressing (except if you’re into these shrimp-flavoured goey californianas )
It works very well with a Parkhurst copper whistle, too. After a few weeks, a patina grows back, but to an even, dark bronze colour, gradually lightening up to clean copper where the fingers rub.
I just let mine age as they will. I just clean the insides of the tubes and wash the plastic mouthpieces every now and then. I have a Feadog brass D that has, in less than a year, achieved a thoroughly vintage appearance.
They didn’t when I was living in Las Vegas. Worse than that, they didn’t have Marmite!
I eventually found a small shop in Vegas called “The British Food Store”… which carried Lea & Perrins, and yes, beloved Marmite…and proper Salt ‘n’ Vinegar crisps! But by cracky what prices they charged! It’s amazing what you find yourself missing when living in another country
I just cleaned my Burke with vinegar last night because I couldnt remember the rest of the formula..I don’t know what the salt would do but will add that next time…
Worcestshire sauce comes in huge bottles at Costco. Widely available. Whaddya think, we are uncivilized??? I love that stuff.
Speaking of which, my 14-yr old repeated a new acronym for PETA he learned at school: People Eat Tasty Animals.
By the miracle of C&F threading, a talk on “polish or patina?” gets transformed into “Marmite or Bovril?”
To stay on topic, I prefer Cenovis. The one in toothpaste tubes. It’s yeast as well, but it’s handier to polish one’s boots than Marmite. Available in any decent town grocery (Geneva, Zürich, Lausanne…)
Worcestershire…couldn’t make decent sweet and sour ribs without it! After growing up hearing my Mom pronounce it …
“Wor-ches-ter-shyre”, I actually heard someone on TV say…
“Wortch-t’-sher”
Any of you UK’ers out there care to straighten me out?
I have no idea where anyone got an idea like that. I have two different brands (Worcestershire sauce) in my cabinets and there are more on the store shelves. If I’m not mistaken, WalMart even has it in a store brand. How much more common can you get than that?
What’s marmite? If it’s anything like Vegemite, I can understand why we don’t have it. That stuff is just plain nasty.
Now Zoob can make salad dressing for his whistles…for…
“Brass will look brighter and require less polishing if rubbed with a cloth moistened with olive oil after each polishing. Olive oil retards tarnish. – Michigan State University Extension”.
Should put the brass whistle on an equal footing with the supposedly more “slippery” nickel whistle.
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