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how to antique brass?

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We often want to ‘age’ stuff and are a little embarrassed when we go to an event with clean and new. But clean and new was used in the day. Should you buy a gun from a maker it came clean and bright. Take it a field, treat it well but let it take normal ware and tear. It will color up nicely.
 
I've used cold blue too and found it easy to work with and producing a pretty nice result. But, I was not able to replicate that even, mellow look that only time can impart on brass...Until I tried ammonia. I put the brass parts in a Tupperware, suspended above a little ammonia, sealed it up and let it sit for about 3 days. Turned out pretty good, I think.
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Back in the day when I was into Civil War reenacting you didn't want to look like a newbie so you would artifactually age your brass buttons and other brass items. How we did it was take a cotton patch and wet it in coffee and run it down the barrel of a fired musket to get it good and black with the gummy powder. Then take the patch and rub the black sticky glob onto the buttons and let it sit. Do this to all of them, if it starts to dry out redo the patch in the coffee and fired powder gunk. In a half an hour we had 25 years on those buttons !
 
I heard YEARS AGO about using tomato juice to age brass, something about the acid in the juice that does it. Never tried it though.
 
Just so folks know, using the ammonia fume method of aging brass can have a downside if the brass part is under a lot of stress.

Brass, treated with ammonia fumes develops millions of tiny almost invisible cracks on its surfaces (called Stress Corrosion).
If the part does not have any forces or loads on it, these usually won't do anything. On the other hand, if the part is under stress, like say, a trigger guard that you have to bend a bit to get it to fit into the mortise or to fit into a gun, those tiny cracks will enlarge and begin to merge into larger cracks.
Over time that can cause the part to crack and break.

For most of the decorative brass parts, this isn't a big thing, but for something like a brass framed revolver, it could become a problem.
 
Why not actuall use what you're wanting aged.
Not trying to be argumentative but why?
Do you honestly think our ancestors got new brass buttons or brass hardware on a gun and said oh manure i dont want to look like a newbie so better age this?
Be authentic to yourself, use your gear and let it age naturally.
 
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