Cleaning mixed metal fireplace tongs

[Alienson]

I was amazed last week when I pulled a pair of old fireplace tongs up after a junky hit on my ACE 350. The tongs are completely intact, and I would like to restore them as much as reasonable possible. The handle and joint are brass, tranished but in excellent shape. The legs are round rods of a ferrous metal but seem to be brass coated. The clamp ends are rather strange, shaped like life-sized racoon paws, pretty cute, but they are iron and fairly rusty even thought the "fingers" look substantial enough to handle electrolosis.

The solid brass parts can be cleaned typically, but the brass(?)-coated legs appear to have lost a substantial amount of their coating and perhaps not much can be done there except for some careful cleaning.

My problem is how to clean the paws while attached to the legs in that they are iron and the legs are brass coated iron. It would take some careful work to suspend just the paws into an electrolysis solution, but I suppose it could be done. Any suggestions?

 

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[boogeyman]

Try looking at the "paws" closely a lot of tongs had screw on parts. You might be able to separate them from the shafts, if not mask the shafts with duct tape before electrolisys etc. If you really want to restore the shafts back to original condition Google up Caswell or one of the other companies that sell small platers or pen plating systems. A pen plater & a bottle of brass solution isn't all that expensive. Don't get intimidated by their websites you don't need to go through ALL the steps they say. Remember they're trying to sell you everyting they have. Simply clean really good. Polish to a high polish. Clean the item again. And lean the item again. (fingerprints are your worst enemy) Then plate the item. Once you plate a couple test items it's really easy to get good results.