Ammonia etc.

[MrStandfast]

I am a little sceptical about claims that a sensible amount of use of metal polish, of a modern and reputable brand which is recommended for fine brasswork rather than the harder and less detailed automobile chrome, can do harm to a reel. Museums don't use them, because museum pieces will have to be polished frequently over the years or centuries, and the rubbing or abrasive may degrade detailed or plated items. In the days when the British army was fuelled on Brasso, the way to status and admiration was to get a departing old soldier's badges and buttons, with the liquid look which a mere year or two of polishing couldn't produce. But for a single removal of tarnish, from a reel which rightly or wrongly may be cheaper and less sought after than a Pflueger minnow, it seems permissible.

The following is for curiosity only, and not for use on anything, but to show that strong, unidentified or experimental solutions should never be used:

Rifle bullets used to be jacketed in nickel silver, usually of a high-nickel variety which looked very white. It used to rub off on rifle barrels, as a lumpy metal layer with very adverse effects. The following "ammonia dope"

Ammonium persulphate 1oz.
Ammonium carbonate 200 grains
Stronger ammonia water (28%) 6oz.
Water 4oz.

This had to be left in a tightly corked barrel for about twenty minutes. Besides removing the cupro-nickel, it could attack the steel bore quite strongly if air was allowed in. Occasionally it did so anyway.

I've seen elsewhere someone quoting an early experiment on rifle cartridge cases, which indicated that ammonia could produce cracking, and even ammonia contained in beeswax, as for some unknown reason seems to have been permitted, could do this. Well, maybe. But a far better documented source of cracking was the fulminate of mercury used in some early primer compositions. This could make a case extremely unsuintable for reloading after firing, but could even produce neck cracking from long, unfired storage. I have some late 19th century Portuguese blank cartridges which exhibited severe cracking, although they contained hollow wooden dummy bullets, with no wax whatever.

Household ammonia is usually a 3.5 to 5% solution, as against the much higher concentrations sometimes used by jewellers and in industry, while metal polishes probably have less. Just try smelling the 5% sort. I doubt if either is harmful, and when the metal is dry and well cleaned off, it's gone. I'm prepared to believe the reputable metal polish makers have got it right.

If you are really worried, though, jeweller's rouge on one of the little felt wheels sold for use with the Dremel hand-grinder, is exclusively a very gentle abrasive, with no chemical effect.

[john elder]

Mr. Fast..thanks much for your contributions and others you've made...and as we say here in the states, You said a mouthful!...which I read over again...and I still don't know where you came down on this issue
Are you suggesting we slather it on, flush it away, or add a spoonful of sugar?

[Ron Mc]

phenomenal.

Using brasso on your reel. It will will look great for you. But the residues you leave behind will crack it at some point. Probably after you sell it. The failure mode is time-dependent, driven by the residual cold work in the metal combined with the environment, and a specific susceptible metal/corrosive agent combination. Guess what? It won't crack your steel barrels. But it will crack your brass cartridge cases.

that being said, I don't believe anyone here ever said that prudent use of high quality polishes is a catastrophe waiting to happen. Think about what you're doing, and why.

There are about 150 years of literature in the professional, technical and scientific resource bases that demonstrated - long ago - that ammonia cracks yellow metal.

Here's your bone - just one place to start
In one of the tests reported below, less than 0.02% ammonia cracked aluminum bronze after a 5000-hour exposure.
http://www.copper.org/applications/cuni ... t_1264.pdf
This, of course, was in a constantly immersed specimen in a bend fixture applying a constant external load. So considering the potentially lower stress state of a cold worked reel part, say, a similar ammonia concentration in the residue, and intermittent wet/dry conditions from the changing environments in which we live - it could take many years to develop cracking in a reel part from a one-time prior exposure.

The "season cracking" of brass cartridges in India is not even one of the data points - it is simply an historic note, and the type example given to engineering students. Of course this particular example had the Royal Academy working to its solution. I'm sure any involved surviving members of the Royal Academy are happy to receive your help on this issue.
Forget your education and all the technical literature, fellows.
We have a gunsmith that knows the real answer. So, you think it's fulminate of mercury that cracks all the ferrules on Montague cane rods?
No, it's cane rot and the ammonia it produces.

[MrStandfast]

Mr. Fast..thanks much for your contributions and others you've made...and as we say here in the states, You said a mouthful!...which I read over again...and I still don't know where you came down on this issue
Are you suggesting we slather it on, flush it away, or add a spoonful of sugar?

John Elder, I wonder if something odd has happened? I thought I saw my thanks for your remarks successfully posted, but if so, it has disappeared. Perhaps I accidentally previewed it twice.

I said, more or less, that I would do anything but slather anything on, and flushing it away sounds pretty good. I’d recommend using reputable polishes occasionally and sparingly, removing the residues carefully, and avoiding any home-made or industrial strength bright ideas. For anyone still worried, I recommended jeweller’s rouge, a very fine abrasive in wax, which will melt onto the surface of a cloth polishing wheel, and is close to chemically inert.

I knew a man who took grave harm from an olive once. He had been drinking Martinis all evening, but it was the one with an olive in it that did for him. The tests in the article Ron Mc quotes consisted of weeks or months actually immersed in sea-water, with and without the ammonia, and the stress corrosion samples were bent to a radius of 14mm. Seawater, besides being quite chemically active in its own right, is a conductor of electricity, permitting the possibility they mention of a galvanic couple.

They did indeed find that the presence of small quantities of ammonia, simulating pollution, made a difference to stress crack corrosion. But plain seawater under these conditions, produced much of it, and they concluded that two cupro-nickel alloys they tested (surely closer to the composition of most collectible reels than aluminium bronze), didn’t suffer from this phenomenon.

Of course I am not suggesting that the tests were wrongly conceived, for the purposes the testers intended them. But I’m sure they would consider them misapplied, to reels kept on a shelf or perhaps sometimes used above water, which may be fresh, for a few hours. After all, water and above-water ammonia are both volatile.

I certainly didn’t mention anything as innovative as the use of fulminate of mercury on rod ferrules. But all the ferrules on Montague rods sounds pretty bad. A lot more people than Montague have made cane rods, and some of anyone’s rot, without such widespread ferrule failure. There are more kinds of metalwork than of cane. So I don't believe we can dismiss the possibility that something about the ferrules conjoined with the decay products.

I couldn’t get the other link to open, so I don’t know if it mentioned cartridge case cracking or the Royal Academy, which I’m sure we must assume to be of Engineering, rather than of Arts, Dance or the Dramatic Arts. I’m not a gunsmith, but I do have in front of me the 1929 Text Book of Small Arms, which goes into great detail on the ten forming steps, five sometimes localized annealings and one semi-annealing, which go into making the rifle cartridge case. They seem to think the causes of cracking are primarily mechanical. It is one of the most exacting of metal-drawing processes, so much that it is of very limited relevance to reels. But it shows that the drawing of highly stressed components such as ferrules must be no simple matter.

I also know how many brass objects, such as my great-grandmother’s candlesticks which have supported the Brasso company for a century and a half, don’t crack. There are things about the chemical environment of bathroom fittings and stable brassware which you probably don’t want to know.

Still, reel collectors must own many which have been frequently polished, and are in an exceptional position to observe failures which can't be attributed to impact etc. alone. It would be interesting go hear of them here.

I’m a newcomer on these boards, and naturally I am anxious to observe the atmosphere of courtesy which applies here. Even if I occasionally feel I may have misunderstood it slightly.

[Ron Mc]

certainly brass and plated components are more susceptible to SCC than cupronickels, but nickel silver is a nickel-alloyed brass, not a cupronickel, and is only somewhat more resistant to SCC than cartridge brass.
No the world will not fail due to SCC - it is considered a rare pheonomenon - but certainly common enough to keep me well-employed
- and every brass component exposed to ammonia will not crack - only those with residual forming stress (or with applied external stress).
Can you spare all your brass springs or formed face plates on your reels? Should you risk your valuable antique?

As far as Montagues go, they used nickel-plated ferrules made from highly drawn brass - even on their saltwater rods. The incidence of cracking in Montague ferrules - and it certainly results from SCC - is much higher than in those of other rodmakers.

here you go, even Wilkipedia recognizes the problem. The case of season cracking of cartridges in India is the type example of SCC given in every corrosion reference book in existence.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Season_cracking


Cracking in brass caused by ammonia attack (public domain)

Seawater is not a bad comparison to the localized environment produced by your fingerprints. While the salt increases the conductivity of any solutions formed, it's still the ammonia that cracks the yellow metal. Very clearly, seawater DOES NOT cause cracking of yellow metals - ammonia does - even small amounts of ammonia. Galvanic couple? They use nylon couplings, by definition, in ASTM corrosion tests to prevent galvanic couples. As your volatile water is drying out, it leaves all the salts in place and produces the most possible corrosive solution before it dries out. Sitting on that shelf, the humidity may change, and crevices and crack tips may preferentially nucleate liquid droplets while the rest of the surface appears perfectly dry. Again, this event would produce extreme corrosive conditions exactly at the location most susceptible for cracking occurrence. Ammonia salts are not at all volatile, and will remain there as long as it takes them to get wet.

[Brian F.]

Ok, we weren't paying attention to this but now we are and here's the deal: If you've participated on this forum for some time or read enough to dig up some old posts mentioned here, you should have a good idea of the tone of this board. This thread took a dive and has not got better. There's a ton of interesting information here and that's why it hasn't been deleted - lose the pot shots at each other, make your statements and let everyone decide for themselves. Disagreements are one thing but inappropriate comments are not welcome. We can edit out the lines that are not in the spirit of this board or you two can (please do it quickly). And then we may still do some surgery anyway of our own. We'll give it a day or so and then the moderators start typing.

[WobblySpindle]

I'm neither qualified nor inclined to argue with Ron about metallurgical subjects, but this thread got me wondering. As an old brass instrument player, I've used a lot of Brasso and a lot of Glass Wax (RIP) over the years, and some of my instruments are over 80 years old. There's no sign of any damage from this treatment, even on the ones which have no remaining protective lacquer or plating. Perhaps I use it differently, but for me, Brasso is OK for cleaning, but after polishing and removing the visible residue, I always rinse the metal then dry again before waxing. So I ask in all seriousness: if Brasso or similar is used sparingly, and the surface wiped, rinsed and/or buffed afterward, how much ammonia are we likely to leave behind and for how long? Is it enough to present a genuine risk to the metal, or is it fairly benign?

[john elder]

I think Ron and all would agree that there would be very little ammonia hanging around after that regimen...your instruments are likely the proof of that...whether thinner brass would weather as well is unclear. I would think the rule of thumb is you don't soak your reels in straight or even diluted ammonia in the manner we usually use white vinegar, eh?!

[WobblySpindle]

Agreed - the dilute acetic acid soak is analogous to the dilute citric acid soak often used to clean old cast iron and steel tools. It works very well, doesn't leave the surface as ugly as electrolysis, and avoids the search for washing soda. But since I've hated the stink of Brasso my entire life (that's really why I wash after polishing), I think I'll try something different for a change. Howards Pine-Ola might be worth a shot; at least the MSDS is a lot more reassuring than the ones for Brasso/Silvo/etc. - just hope the stuff works. I'll try to locate some today, and try it out on a couple of old generic brass skeleton reels.
Update: no Howard's was to be had at the few places I looked, but I did spend a bit of time researching MSDS's. Ammonia is in most of the commercial brass cleaners, except for Twinkle, CitriSurf77, and a few others I'm sure I missed, all of which apparently feature either citric or oxalic acid. Mother's (Mag Wheel cleaner) takes a different approach, with kerosene and sodium hydroxide. I think I'll just go with acid and maybe a bit of elbow grease for the reels, and order some Pine-Ola online for later. The horns have survived ammonia for this long, they'll probably outlast me even with Brasso.

[Steve]

We've gone through this before: http://reeltalk.orcaonline.org/viewtopic.php?t=2895. It boils down to whether or not we want to treat our old reels the way museum conservators would treat them or just clean and/or polish them by methods we may have developed empirically, which may or may not prevent long-term deterioration. Even those collectors who never clean reels should consider whether or not the dirt/corrosion/patina on a reel may continue to damage the metal. If anyone opts for the conservator route, there's a lot of info online. (e.g., http://www.mnhs.org/preserve/conservati ... s_urn.html, http://www.thehenryford.org/research/ca ... ss.aspx#3c)

[WobblySpindle]

Thanks. I'd found some of those, but not all. It's nice to find out what the pros use, even if the methods might not be the most convenient for us. I sort of got off on a tangent after reading praises for Goddard's brass and copper cleaner as being ammonia-free, then finding ammonium hydroxide listed among its ingredients on the H&HS site.

[MrStandfast]

In a way I am sorry to see that there was continuing interest in this post, and points that deserve an answer. I had edited my post slightly before noticing Brian's comment, and I don't believe it was for anything but . But I spelling or grammar, or that anyone edited it for me. I was actually the first to mention that the tests quoted involved 5000 hour immersion and material under bending stress throughout. But I don't believe anyone could call anything I said insulting.

As John Elder said, it was initially hard to say what my position was, since it was one of caution, suggesting that very limited use of well known ammonia-bearing metal polishes was likely to be safe, but nothing strong, untried or original should be used, and that there were more inert alternatives for those who still had doubts.

But the major difference in content between sea water and fingerprints (which don't apply unless you leave fingerprints) is water. If water has washed over them, you are left with pretty much the chemical content of the water. There is also a great difference between ammonia being given off by animal manures, and ammonia the reel may have given off and seen departing in the breeze years before.

The case of cartridge cases in India is well known, and dates from a period when it was not longer atttibutable to fulminate of mercury primers. The Wikipedia article appears to have been written by someone unfamiliar with the technology, as season cracking produced inaccuracy, but not misfiringt. Even they, though, admit the importance of residual stress from manufacturing (work-hardening), and say that the problem was solved by annealing. In the case of brass this means heating and suddenly cooling the metal.

Brass is stressed far more by gunpowder than by hand or fish, and the gas from a high-pressure rupture is extremely destructive. The point is that cartridge cases cannot, for safety reasons, be fully annealed. The neck and body need to be partly annealed, by heating to less than the red that would produce full softness, and the annealing must not extend to place where the body adjoins the solid head at the rear of the case. The change that saved the day was simply in carrying that partial annealing a little further back along the case body. No such stricture applies to most brass reel parts, which can be annealed more and all over.

Did you wonder why the two little cups in the Wikipedia article, reproduced above, should look so unfamiliar? I believe they are percussion caps, which are still made to be slipped onto the steel nipple of a muzzle-loading gun. The size most people use is about 1/8in. outside diameter, with metal of around .003in. thick. They are meant to break open when fired, as unbroken ones are hard to remove. This is achieved by not annealing them, and by deliberately forming longitudinal physical crevices, just like those we see in the Wikipedia objects. What may happen to this under chemical attack, if there is any chemical attack, is world removed from a thick, shallow-drawn object which the manufacturer takes care to make wrinkle-free.

The reason I mentioned a galvanic couple, and I believe for the testers quoted above to do so, although they used plastic washers to reduce its likelihood, is that much equipment used around water is not so insulated. It is legitimate point in arguing that 5000 hours immersed is significantly different from leaving fingerprints. If you leave fingerprints.

As I said, there are probably few old reels or comparable objects which haven't, at some point, received treatment of the kind we are told will crack your reel - with the implication that this is trouble I will leave for someone else. If I sell my reels. But nobody has produced examples of reels with otherwise inexplicable fractures. There isn't much "will" about this. Wobblyspindle may be very right in thinking waxing to to be advantageous. But I'd stick to the position that occasional use of a product made for fine brasswork is acceptable.