Knee Buckle Cleanup

Wildcat1750 (nyjrbethelct)

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I am relatively new at cleanup and restoration of my rusty finds, especially when they are more complicated than a horseshoe!

After some debating I opted to clean up a 1700s Knee Buckle that I found last Sunday. First I soaked it in Evapo Rust for 24 hours. Then I carefully removed the rust with a metal pick, toothpick and my Dremel Tool. In between sessions I dipped the buckle in Evapo Rust and let it dry, to keep it stable.

I decided preserving with Rust Converter because I was nervous about baking the iron together with the brass, plus I already had Rust Converter an felt I had better control applying it with a toothpick, so as not to get any rust converter on the brass. The tongue turned black, as predicted, but it's not a bad look in this case and will stop the tongue from crumbling away, which is my main objective.

For comparison I have included a photo of my intact knee buckle along side a larger but incomplete example that I found a few years ago.

HH
Nick
 

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That turned out really nice.
I wonder if you could now paint the tongue a steel color, to make it look more like it once did?
 
The iron part looks good but you unfortunately took off the nice patina and "burnt" the brass metal of the frame with the chemicals .It has a very unnatural orange color to it
 
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