Birchwood Casey Brass Black Metal Finish, 3-Ounce

Works just fine on copper and has a nice dark black finish to it. The finish is slightly fragile on plain copper itself so if this is an area of heavy wear you might want to go for multiple coats but my primary use for this is aging and highlighting engravings so it's overall perfect for what I need. I say fragile but even with repeated go-overs with steel wool (for contrast) it will still leave an obvious dark finish, so it's penetrating pretty well Very, very reactive and will blacken in a couple moments. This is not a gradual aging like you get from some products where it takes an hour or two to get the full effect. Like with any bluing/blacking solution surface prep is absolutely critical, so if you're running into finish problems then make sure of how you're prepping your piece. Oils will interfere with the process so a good rubdown with acetone or some kind of alcohol will take care of that. Even surface finish will lead to a consistent black.

Works great for brass coins. Here’s my steps for use: Soak brass until completely black Wipe excess off with paper towel Hit high spots with 0000 Steel wool Hit high spots again with dremel felt polisher

I'm building a Hawkens flintlock rifle. The brass in the kit is just too shiny for my liking. I watched a video on building this kit, and he used this on his. I thought I'd give it a try, and am quite glad I did. I started by scuffing the brass lightly with a 320 grit sandpaper, then painted on the Brass Black. I let it sit for a couple of minutes until it dried, then rinsed it under cold water, then dried it with a paper towel. After that, I took a piece of ScotchBrite and soaked it, then lightly buffed the brass with the damp pad. That took a lot of the black off, but then I repeated the process for a second coat. After the second coat, I was pretty satisfied with the results. Oh yeah, it also takes very little. I pour just enough into the bottom of a plastic cup to get a q-tip wet. I don't think it would be a good idea to dip the q-tip back into the bottle once you've started painting the brass with it. It looks to me like it would contaminate the rest. That may not be so, but why risk it. It's an easy process, and I really like the results. I would recommend it to anyone trying to antique their brass hardware.

"Your results may vary." Keep that in mind. I just received this yesterday and have only used this for the single highly specific purpose intended. I used this to chemically blacken the head of soft "yellow" brass wood screws used in a 1946 Baldwin grand Piano. I believe these screws were all originally blackened in a similar manner with all but one being "polished away" either by mere ordinary use or "mistake" as "brass should be "shiny." See video for clues to the mystery and see if you agree. The only audio is the piano itself. Sorry that the video ends before the top is installed but I'm waiting on some new rubber "mushrooms" as the old ones are so hard and deformed that they actually deformed the wood (and finish) below--fortunately I could save and "camouflage" the finish damage but of course the wood damage is permanent. Some things I discovered that won't be apparent from the video: 1) Timing is critical. About one minute as per label instructions seems right. 2) Additional "coats" only help to a point. About three seems the max before you hit a point where it seems nothing really changes--some parts "more black" but others "less black." Again--this seems to be very much an "art." 3) YOU CANNOT DIP!! It simply won't work! And DEFINITELY don't dip in the full bottle! You would contaminate the entire EXPENSIVE thing! If you MUST attempt to dip then pour a small amount into an appropriately shaped small container! 4) Too much of the product just eats away at the coating you've put on. 5) Too little of the product and nothing really happens. 6) The rim around the screw head is VERY, VERY difficult to cover fully. 7) Be CERTAIN to use steel wood in the preparation stage! 8) The instructions are excellent and should be generally followed step=by-step and sort of to the letter. That said, while rinsing is absolutely mandatory, blotting dry with microfiber is fine for something that doesn't need "buffing" for any sort of appearance when you just want it to "disappear" to begin with... 9) While I have every reason to suspect that this piano left the factory with screw heads "finished" in much this manner perhaps using the exact same sort of chemical formulation know that as produced it is highly fugitive in that you can even "polish" it away with your fingers. This "problem" can be "fixed" lets say by using a couple very light coats of gloss spray lacquer. Some but not all brass on this piano (think hinges) were originally lacquered--very nicely--nicely enough that I just refinished an excellent existing lacquer finish on brass during the restoration--it never saw any "brass polish." The screws used however had never I'm sure been lacquered. Baldwin was sort of the "Chevrolet" maker of US Pianos compared to a fancy name that likely would have gone the extra mile let's say to lacquer those screw heads...but even then it could be polished away...

I used this as an experiment on an old solid brass round door knob that had been scratched and old looking for 20 years. I had to remove the last scraps of lacquer first, and then followed the directions and immersed the knob. It turned the color I was hoping, the gorgeous oiled bronze look which is what I was going for, and why I give the product 5 stars. Unfortunately some of the dark coloring has rubbed off in odd, patchy spots on the edge of the round knob, but I really can't say if it was my fault for rushing through the process or the products fault, or perhaps brass that is not evenly mixed. I have more knobs and other solid brass items, so will experiment with them and see if there is a better process and update this as I learn more. By the way, I also bought the oil rubbed bronze spray paint (metallic) and sprayed another brass knob, the kind with the handle to the side instead of round. It is under some use on a bedroom door and has held up really well, and looks fine, but no where near the patina this gives. Despite that, I will likely paint the majority of my knobs because it seems silly to replace them to update my house look when I can easily paint them, thus saving more stuff to be dumped in the dump and environment. I will use this product on my front door knob and plate as I like this look better, but cleaning off the lacquer was more arduous than I liked, as I tried rubbing alcohol (worked on one know, not the other), mineral spirits ( worked on the other knob) and lacquer thinner (helped but did not work well). Apparently finishes have changed over the years and trying to figure out what to use to remove the stuff as well as the actual scrubbing is a bit more energy than I want to do for EACH knob, thus the paint on knobs that are not easily seen. If any one has any ideas on how to make that removal easier, I would love to hear about it.

It works great on actual brass/bronze, etc. If your items are brass-plated, clear coated, your results may not be as good. We wanted to add a patina to cabinet handles. The handles consist of stamped metal base plated to look like brass and what looks like cast brass handle. I think ours used to be laquered a long time ago, so some of them were not as good as others, but those that had consistent surface "before" ended up looking consistently beautiful "after". The finish is similar to blued steel - it has a deep sheen and appears to be very durable (it is not a "layer", not like paint, it's part of the actual metal). I tried diluting with water and I don't recommend it. And I also recommend dipping. Applying with a q-tip is not as consistent. Find a suitable vessel, pour in the stuff, dip the parts, splosh them around (gloves or tweeers!), then rinse and dry. We managed to treat a few dozen handles and hinges with the small bottle, but barely. If you have more parts, get the bigger bottle. Great product.

I used this for turning black parts black for a ship model. First try I did not clean the brass and it crusted up and pealed up. Friend At HRSMS.org told me to clean it first with acetone (got a bottle from the nail polish department at Walmart) and on the second try the finish came out smooth and dark black even when bent. Works great if you get your brass clean.

Does not get brass as black as I would have liked. Better than nothing though.

I compare my need for this product to someone giving themselves a bad hair colour job, where after they've made the mistake and have horrible yellow hair, they are trying desperately to find a way to bring it back to its original colour! In my case, I have an old brass door knocker that can be dated loosely between 1945-1975 (LOL). I'm in the process of updating my front entrance door and thought, hey after 25 years maybe there's something nice under this black stuff. I send a picture to my brother and he said, it could be brass. Without thinking, I took my SOS pad and in seconds was able to remove the black to reveal brass thinking I found treasure (and sent him the photo of it partially sanded and then... about 30 seconds later I was like... "OMG, now I've done it! I really want it blackened! What am I going to do?!" So to the internet and Amazon I went so fix my mess. I figured someone must have discovered a way to do it by now and someone did! Birchwood Casey. This product worked like a charm! I actual found it is more commonly used on guns (gasp), but that it can work on any brass metal object. Here's how I did it. - I first wiped down the knocker with acetone to remove any residue. - I then soaked cotton pads, wiped the surface with Brass Black let sit for about 2 minutes and continued to applied several applications, while letting in dry in between each one. - I let the whole thing dry for about 5 more minutes then washed under water. A tiny bit of black came off but nothing notable. - I held it up on my door to take a photo and show you how well it worked! Take a look at the photos! It's actually funny how I have a picture of each stage as I was so excited, full or regret, then excited again. If you have questions, be sure to ask a question vs. comment as Amazon doesn't send me messages when comments are left.

Have used on clean brass. Gives good pitch black if the surface is cleaned nicely. After some months it was not giving good black. But patches. Especially in monsoon so moisture and dust if avoided, it works great

Used it on laser-engraved coins. It gave a great finished look.

Works after several applications.

have used this product for years and very pleased