Concerning restoring angle valves

Big Ed_3

You would need to sand them down and buff it further down in steps . Nasty dirty work . I buy new stuff only now .

Daniel_3

Hey guys,

I have many one pipe steam angle valves varying from 1 1/4" to 1" that I'd like to restore. I would like to refinish them mainly by stripping them even past the nickel coat on most of them to get down to shiny brass and maybe find some wood valve handles to replace some of the cheaper plastic ones. Anyone do this sort of work before? If you check for "crane radiator valves" on ebay at his moment you can see exactly what I'm looking to do. They are truly beautiful.

Daniel_3

How bout a brass wire wheel rather than sanding and then light work with a dremel? I know that a detroit valve I was working on recently seemed tough to repair the packing and loosen the nut which was basically fused forever, but it shouldn't seem too bad to refinish the metal. The newer valves made by Mueller, durst, american valve, etc. just aren't as nice imho.

Mike T., Swampeast MO

I seriously doubt you'd keep steam valves shiny brass. Heat accelerates oxidation and I've NEVER seen a clear coating for brass that lasts for many years at normal--let alone steam--temperatures. Of course you could get out the Brasso at least once a year...

In my experience plated (nickel or otherwise) seem the rarity. They're usually bare, fairly rough never-intended-to-be-polished brass that was originally bronzed just like the radiator.

If your valves were originally nickel plated, I suggest taking them to a good jeweler. Even here in Swampeast MO I know of two jewelers who do plating--copper, nickel, chrome, gold, silver, etc... If I remember correctly, brass is first plated with copper then the copper plate is plated with nickel, chrome, gold, silver, etc.

Big Ed_3

Stepping Down

To polish you need to knock of the high point of the metal . You start with a medium grit sanding and work your way down to fine , Then you hit the buffer wheel and use rouse , Which is grit and cuts the metal finer . The bigger the machine the better
. The trick is to keep the metal warm - hot . You need to keep working the metal until its to where you want it . You will use finer and finer rouse to bring it to polish . Then throw a coat of wax on the finish product or send it out for a chroming . The prepping is all the work and money .

A small decent entry level set up from Tar-heel could set you back $500 or better .

Big Ed_3

Stepping Down

To polish you need to knock of the high point of the metal . You start with a medium grit sanding and work your way down to fine , Then you hit the buffer wheel and use rouse , Which is grit and cuts the metal finer . The bigger the machine the better
. The trick is to keep the metal warm - hot . You need to keep working the metal until its to where you want it . You will use finer and finer rouse to bring it to polish . Then throw a coat of wax on the finish product or send it out for a chroming . The prepping is all the work and money . Dirty Dirty work.......

A small decent entry level set up from Tar-heel could set you back $500 or better .

Christian Egli_2

Things that shine are made of gold

Hello Daniel, our steam paths are crossing again...

Here are pictures of both a valve and a trap that I decided to clean for the purposes of this thread, you know the trick, as seen on TV, before and after.

Both these items are made of plain sand cast brass, they both looked plenty aged before hand... but after the stripping, they came out much shinier. Dazzlingly. I don't know how well the deep gold color comes out on screen, but it is rich looking. As stated by others, a real polishing job is a job all on itself, what was done here is not a mechanical polish - this was easy (ish).

We have some in-house metal finishing operations for a bunch of other purposes, but a job we did along your lines come to mind. This one old house had architecturally designed window latches that had all miserably failed - we had to reengineer the things and we did strip the damaged nickel off of them.

We routinely repair valves and valve stems, valve beautification never really occurred to me... but look at the pictures.

Daniel_3

Very nice work. . . .If I had the shop equipment to do so it would have been done yet I would be doing this all by hand mostly. I guess I can survive without them being refinished yet maybe when the future allows it I'll take some pics of the work . Thanks Christian.