My
Metal Polish
Metal Polish:
The best way to keep metal shiny is to
polish
it, but an abrasive polish will slowly over time wear away the metal
until there is nothing left. I did a lot of polishing with my
various hobbies like instrument
restoration
and ring
making, and found the chemical
polishes did not keep the metals shiny long enough under heavy
use. So to combat this problem, I created my own polish. It
started out when I had a couple of assorted bottles of half empty
polish, and mixed
them together to see if the resultant polish would still work. It
totally
didn't, but not wanting to waste it, I kept the bottle anyway, and
eventually found putting some other ingredients in the polish made it
work again, even better than it's constituent store-bought
counterparts. My
super polish which I have unofficially named "Rub n' Glow", will keep
metal shiny, if
you simply rub with your thumb after it has started to turn colors and
then
wipe it with your shirt. I am not sure why it does this, but I
believe it is because of my secret ingredient, which I shall not
disclose to you.
Ingredients:
The main ingredients are as
follows:
Turtle Wax, Turtle Wax Extreme Car Wash and Wax, ammonia, Tarn-X,
turpentine, bees wax, acetone, lacquer thinner, vinegar, salt, Wright's
silver polish, Wright's brass polish, 3-M Tarnishield, Joy
dish soap, Mop n' Glow floor cleaner, Turtle Wax Chrome Polish, Armor
All, and of course my secret ingredient (which is non toxic, you could
eat it if you wanted too, (but you would not want to). The
proportions of these
ingredients are of course proprietary. I am working on a version
of my polish that uses no
patented ingredients (stuff other people are selling, that you don't
know what is in it for sure) and the only reason I havn't made it
yet is I have a few quarts of the old stuff at home, and I don't want
to waste it (I don't use it very fast because it works so well, so I am
always looking for ways to get rid of it).
Warning:
My polish is
dangerous,
there is a lot of truely nasty chemicals in there and it stains
everything non-matallic it touches purplish brown! Even my
fingers turn purple for a few days, so I wear latex gloves when using
it, and it stains the gloves instead of my digits. Because of
the turpentine, it
smells like a pine forest, but it would be incredibly bad to use it
without ventilation, It could kill you if you deliberately concentrated
and inhaled the fumes (which is the case with lots of chemicals,
including
several of my ingredients). As an alternative, I have created a
special
watered down version of it and soaked it into rages which can be used
for maintainance or touch-up work, which shouldn't poison you, as you
have no contact with the liquid solvents.
More Experimentation:
Also,
I tried to create a shoe polish, which of course didn't work, but when
my solid quasi shoe polish is rubbed onto metal before the polish rag
is used, the
finish
will gleam for 6 months on brass (which corrodes in one night
regularly), and wiping it with your shirt makes it good for another
3 months. All of the best inventions were made by accident!
Next Generation Polish:
For my "Rub n' glow 2" I will use bees wax,
turpentine, carnauba
wax, traces of paraffin wax, calcium carbonate precipitate (maybe),
traces of
petrolium jelly, traces of
mineral oil, denatured alcohol, neutral detergent (not acidic or
basic), acidified thio-urea, (vinegar, salt,
lemon
juice (citric acid), for copper/brass) (aluminum sulfate, sodium
bicarbonate for silver), lacquer thinner, traces of HCl,
dissolved silicone plastic (maybe), home-cooked polyurethane (urea
mixed with alcohol, assuming I find a way to dissolve it after making
it) and of course my secret ingredient.
None
of these are patented ingredients.