A Surprise Find

Over a year ago I bid on a hardware lot on Ebay. It was an assortment of latches, bin pulls, hinges, back plates, and other things from around the turn of the century. I specifically wanted the pulls in the picture below. I had recently discovered the hole in the wall for the dumb waiter style door and knew that eventually, some day I was going to rebuild door. I don’t recall what the bid was, but it was a great deal if I had purchased all the things separately.



Here is a picture of some of the cool things I got out of the lot. The hinges and back plates are some place else, and most of the bin pulls have been cleaned up and installed.



Last night I cleaned up the last set of bin pulls that I need for the kitchen. These are going on the third cabinet that I bought at an antique store locally. They were black with dirt, grime, and corrosion, and had what was either rust or some red paint splattered on them. I assumed they were cast iron like all the others. What I use to clean cast iron is navel jelly and a wire brush. First I paint on the navel jelly with a small brush and let it sit for about 20 minutes. Then I take them out side and hose off the jelly and go at them with a wire brush. I use a brass brush that looks kind of like a tooth brush on steroids.

Immediately when I began to brush I noticed these did not look like cast iron. I assume they are solid brass. I really don’t know my metals too well, so they could even be bronze, but I doubt it. Either way they look great. After I get them cleaned up, I dry them real good with paper towels and blast them with the heat gun. I then spare on clear lacquer. They look nice, or at least I think so, but I hope they don’t look out of place with all the cast iron hardware.