Here in the UK we have a toilet cleaner call Harpic. It's one of those ''Kills germs, removes lime scale etc'' kinda things. Many moons ago I spilled some on a bathroom tap and it removed the chrome overnight.
Now I'm partial to buying brass razors so I've bought a few with poor gold plating as they're cheap, no one seems to want em, and I'm gonna polish off the remains of the gold plate anyway. I like the brass ya see.
They come up fantastic. Here's an example. This one was in poor condition on ebay stateside so I snapped it up and gave it a good clean...
Then I saw a poor condition nickel plated ball end Tech made in England. It was obviously all brass underneath the plating which was in a state. Now this got me thinking about that Harpic which stripped the chrome from my taps. Maybe it would work on nickel plate eh? So I bought the razor and the Harpic and set to work. I gave the top cap and bottom plate a going over with sand paper...just enough to weaken and thin the nickel plate on the flate surfaces. Obviously the handle couldn't really be sanded. The whole lot was submerged in Harpic overnight, then scrubbed with a brass wire brush, the kind used to clean spark plugs. Same process a second night then another good scrub with
the wire brush. Have a look..
There's still some nickel plate left in the small nooks and crannies but I'm confident that could be removed with a bit more time and effort.
Now obviously a replate isn't expensive so a professional strip probably wouldn't cost much more if any, but hey I'm a cheapskate and just fancied laying the voices to rest in my head. I've been toying with the idea for a while. Personally I think the end result is pretty good. Have I mentioned I like a bit o brass? According to the label Harpic contains 9% Hydrochloric acid and it costs less than £2 a bottle.
Thanks for looking.
Now I'm partial to buying brass razors so I've bought a few with poor gold plating as they're cheap, no one seems to want em, and I'm gonna polish off the remains of the gold plate anyway. I like the brass ya see.
They come up fantastic. Here's an example. This one was in poor condition on ebay stateside so I snapped it up and gave it a good clean...
Then I saw a poor condition nickel plated ball end Tech made in England. It was obviously all brass underneath the plating which was in a state. Now this got me thinking about that Harpic which stripped the chrome from my taps. Maybe it would work on nickel plate eh? So I bought the razor and the Harpic and set to work. I gave the top cap and bottom plate a going over with sand paper...just enough to weaken and thin the nickel plate on the flate surfaces. Obviously the handle couldn't really be sanded. The whole lot was submerged in Harpic overnight, then scrubbed with a brass wire brush, the kind used to clean spark plugs. Same process a second night then another good scrub with
the wire brush. Have a look..
There's still some nickel plate left in the small nooks and crannies but I'm confident that could be removed with a bit more time and effort.
Now obviously a replate isn't expensive so a professional strip probably wouldn't cost much more if any, but hey I'm a cheapskate and just fancied laying the voices to rest in my head. I've been toying with the idea for a while. Personally I think the end result is pretty good. Have I mentioned I like a bit o brass? According to the label Harpic contains 9% Hydrochloric acid and it costs less than £2 a bottle.
Thanks for looking.
