Since I got several inquiries about my restoring process recently, I made some notes.
I'm afraid these are just part of whole restoring process and you already know most of them. Followings are just for your reference.
As of Aug. 2001.
My primary purpose of restoring lamps & lanterns is to clean "inside" of the fount,
fuel valve and burner assembly. I think you can understand well the reason why. If inside of those parts are dirty, then the lamps & lanterns will not last for a long use or even go out of order.
On the other hand, I don't focus too much on cleaning "outside" of the parts. Yes, I like beautifully shining nickel plated fount, parts, ventilator etc. At the same time, however, I feel it's a little bit strange if more than 50 to 80 years old vintage items have beautifully shining face. Natural aging ( this does not mean dirty ) would be more comfortable to me.
Therefore, I usually use Citric Acid with hot water for my restoring. Yes, Citric Acid, when you make juice you should use it. Obviously it's safe for us and mild to the parts but enough to clean them out. Furthermore, I can get it easily with cheap price at the nearest pharmacy here in Japan.
Anyway, followings are my restoring process with Citric Acid and I learned most of these from Kazuo Sakano, my Japanese collector fellow. Thanks Kazuo.
1) Disassemble the parts and sort out them into brass and steel.
2) Please note "the parts" is not including the fount at this point. I'll tell you about the fount later.
3) Make acid solution with hot water 1000 and Citric Acid 5 ( I mean 0.5% solution ) in a porcelain pot. Although I think 0.5% Citric Acid solution is mild to any pots, it's better to choose porcelain one. Please sneak it from your wife.
4) Put steel parts into the pot first and mildly boil them about 15 minutes.
5) Remove the steel parts from the solution.
6) Please pay attention that if you boil both steel parts and brass parts at the same time in the solution, then steel parts changes their color to black because of ionizing. The color will return to normal by washing them with just water & ordinary dish cleanser, so don't push the panic button. However it's better to sort out steel and brass as possible as we can.
7) Next, put brass parts into the pot and mildly boil them about 5-10 minutes.
8) Although it depends on how the brass parts are dirty, if you boil them too long, say more than 15 minutes, then their color changes to pinkish. However It can be solved by later process. So, again it's not a critical issue.
9) Remove the brass parts from the solution.
10) Wash out both of them by water with ordinary dish cleanser and sponge.
11) Wipe off the water of the steel & brass parts by towel etc. and dry them.
12) Now, my primary purpose, cleaning inside of the fuel valve, burner assembly and some other parts are finished. If you want to clean "outside" of those parts more, then you should forward to brushing ( buffing ? ) step.
13) In most cases, surface rust of the steel parts are removed by above process but if you prefer more beautiful and shining finish, then you could brush ( buff ? ) them up with brass brush.( NOT steel brush )
14) I use drill machine & vice to help this brushing.
15) Regarding brass parts, I guess some of them have changed their color to pinkish through boiling process. So, if you want to turn back their original brass color, then you should brush them as same as steel parts brushing.
16) However I don't recommend to brush the nickel plated ventilator which was often made of brass. Just polishing with some sort of compound would be recommended. I use "WENOL" which was made in Germany as my compound for polishing.
17) Now, I must tell you about cleaning outside & inside of the fount.
18) First, outside of the fount, it depends on what material of the fount is.
19) If the fount was fully made of brass like European lamps and nickel plated, then I put it into the Citric Acid solution. The rest of the process is the same as brass parts except brushing. I don't recommend brushing nickel plated fount and prefer to just polishing like ventilator.
20) If the fount was made of the combination of brass & steel like American lamps and nickel plated, then I DON'T put into the Citric Acid solution. As I told you, because of ionizing. So, just polishing with compound would be recommended.
21) No matter what the material of the fount is, if the fount was painted and/or has a decal, then I DON'T put into the Citric Acid solution. Again just polishing with compound would be recommended.
22) Next, in order to clean inside of the fount, I put several small nuts, a little "dish cleanser & water" into the fount and shake them about 3-5 minutes with blocking fuel & valve holes of the fount by my finger.
23) After shaking, put more water into the fount and try to
remove the nuts by again shaking the fount but not blocking holes of the fount.
24) Usually you should put water into the fount and shake it several times to remove the nuts completely. You need the great patience here like a married life !?. Along with this process, however, inside of the fount would be cleaned very well.
25) After removing all the nuts & water, then dry inside of the fount using a big funnel & hair dryer. ( Oh my ! again you must sneak it from........ )
26) I strongly recommend to remove the fuel valve assembly from the fount before this process and put the funnel into the fuel pour hole so that the hot air of the dryer brow out from the fuel pour hole to valve assembly hole.
27) Normally it takes 15 minutes to dry inside of the fount completely.
28) If you want to do this process for a large fount like table lamp, it might take more than 60 minutes. It would be a bother but again the patience should be needed.
Hopefully aboves could be a little hint for you.
Shinzo Kono