Cleaning pewter trains?

That's a great collection that you've managed to acquire.

 

Pewter is quite easy to clean with normal kitchen products. A wipe down with vinegar will remove most dirt and grime, and then a light buffing with a soft cloth and some ketchup will restore the finish.   (If it's really dirty, you can soak it in vinegar for a while too.)

 

Do be careful not to over-clean pewter though, as the natural patina acquired through age is one of its great attractions. 

       
       

My first thought was don’t clean them….N.Q.D.Y. last nugget of knowledge.
I never heard of ketchup as a cleaner, but. It sounds like it would work.
Not sure if Heintz would be better then Hunt's? I lean towards Hunt's on my Fries..
Anyhow, cool find and nice buy..

K.C.

I remember when there were magazine ads selling those.......IIRC they were about $30USD each so good deal!!!

Thanks Nicole will give that a try later today. James

I forgot to mention earlier, but you'll probably need to rinse them in clean water afterwards to get rid of any remaining ketchup traces. 

Hi K.C.

 

Surprisingly, Ketchup is a pretty good metal cleaner. It works well at removing tarnish on silver, copper and chrome too. It's very good for using on jewellery. (Use a soft toothbrush to get into all of the crevices.)

 

It also very good for getting chlorine out of your hair after using a pool. (It's pretty good at removing skunk aroma too if you or your pets get sprayed.)  Just use a big dollop of ketchup as a shampoo, rub it in well, leave for a short while, and then rinse it out. 

 

As for the brand, well I'm a '57 vintage myself, and so it has to be Heinz for me. 

LOL….
I spent most of yesterday in the pool.  I wish I would of known that sooner.
I’ll try anything once.. but I don’t know about this one…



K.C.

Now someones tells me, "then rinse it out".

Ketchup is acidic. Not certain what the advantage over vinegar would be.

Not sure but after using the vinegar I used the ketchup and they looked a lot cleaner & sparkled.

James

I'm happy to hear that it worked well for you James.

 

I believe that the reason that the ketchup works well is due to both the acidity, and that the paste is a very mild abrasive.

 

Many common kitchen/household items can be used for cleaning purposes. Salt is pretty good for cleaning the inside of coffee pots, and is a good general purpose abrasive cleaner for many other uses too.

 

Champagne is good for removing red-wine stains if applied quickly. Soak a napkin with the champagne, and then dab it onto the wine stain (Don't rub!) until it starts to fade. If this is on a carpet, follow up by covering the damp stain with salt and leave it to dry for an hour or two. Afterwards just vacuum up the salt and the stain should be gone. 

quote:

Many common kitchen/household items can be used for cleaning purposes. Salt is pretty good for cleaning the inside of coffee pots, and is a good general purpose abrasive cleaner for many other uses too

 

I worked in a theater in my youth. We used vinegar to clean the lines in the soda machines and the coffee pots. Our soda machines used premix (flat soda in stainless steel containers, something like 10 gallons or so). We'd take an empty can, fill it part way with vinegar and water, and run it through the machine. Then we'd rinse out the can, and run plain water to clear out the vinegar.

I agree, vinegar is great stuff. I use it for de-scaling my kettle and espresso machine.