2D Baseplate

I’ve made a start on my restoration project! I removed the baseplate from the camera and the brass attached to it. I painted on a coating of paint stripper I found in the garage, wrapped it up and left it for am hour. That I could see, it did nothing! So I made my own! Basically about 500ml of water, 2 table spoons of cornflour to thicken, then 50g or thereabouts of Sodium Hydroxide. Now before I go any further, I should say – Sodium Hydroxide is nasty stuff, it’s caustic, it WILL burn your skin, so if ever you fancy making up a batch, wear all protection equipment you can, certainly glasses and gloves at the least! I repeated the procedure but only left it on for half hour or so – I knew it would work better as the colour started to come off on the brush I was painting it on with! It did OK. I washed it off, wiped and scraped and got a lot of gunk off. Since then I’ve been sanding in short bursts. It appears the original stain has gone well into the wood, so I’m not going down to bare “light” wood. What you see above is around my limit of patience! I’ve laid the sanded baseplate on the rail bed just to show the change in tone. I’m now going to select a wood dye to take it back down again, and hopefully enhance the grain and produce a lighter, but uniform look. Lesson learned here, next piece I’m going to let the stripper take more of the strain and do it’s stuff, before I clean and sand (hopefully less!).

Brass: I’ve never cleaned any metal before that I can remember so I tried Brasso. I made a start on the worst strip of brass edging. A load of muck came off and it looked brighter. The wadding had gone all but black, as had my fingers, so I tore another bit off the roll, repeated. I decided for no particular reason to wipe over all the removed brass bits. Then work my way around again. I noticed that it left a deposit of (?) cream on the surface, I cleaned again, then I had the inspiration just to wipe it off, rather than move it about – WOW! Instant shine. It’s a wonder stuff on a roll! I look forward to doing the next brass bits now! (With gloves on!) If only there was a “Woodo” to get the varnish/dye off the wood so easily!