One big eye sore

[dickshindles]

I've got a photo shoot of our brewery coming up next week with our local paper. I thought it would be nice to shine up the tanks-so I buy this copper shine product (probably a strong acid buffered with a salt). Our kitchen guys have used it with great success on their copper display platters. Anyway, I gave it a shot. It looked like it was doing the trick at first, but now, the tanks turned a murky, blackish-greenish, creature from the black lagoonish color. They look 100x worse than they did before I started!:mad: :confused: :mad: :confused:
What can I do to fix this? I tried wetting it down and wiping it off, using diluted nitric acid on a sponge, nothing seems to fix it. I have until Monday to make it look good, if not good, at least restored to it's old mediocre condition. Please share the wisdom,, and if you can, explain what went wrong here. I'm at a loss.:confused:

[gabewilson50]

I've had some great success with Barkeeper's Friend, it seems to polish up any type of bad oxidative stress on copper. I would suggest it to clean up your blackening as well.

[MikeRoy]

Noxon 7 has worked well for me in the past.

[Sulfur]

There's some good info on another thread here somewhere. Anyway, I've used various copper polishers. We use either Noxon or Wrights Copper Cream. The one you used sounds similar to Wrights Copper Cream. I've found that unless it's used exactly as recommended (i.e. you remove it all with rinsing/wet sponge/etc) you will have remnants left on the kettle that oxidize into funky colors. Yes, my kettles actually had a purple haze once. To alleviate that, we polished again with same product and the haze dissapeared for good. So it sounds like you either left cream/paste on the kettle or you need to do it again one more time...

My take on Wright's copper cream is that it's very fast, but it doesn't last as well/long as Noxon. Noxon however, takes more muscle to apply...Noxon's also smells very pungent so I'm only comfortable applying it in the morning before customers arrive to the restaurant, Wright's is almost odorless and can be applied anytime.

[GlacierBrewing]

I've used StarSan (Five Star Chemicals) to shine my copper. One wipe and it shines. Depending on the density of your copper, it may be shiny for a couple of days before it begins to fade.
prost!
dave

[Ted Briggs]

Flitz from rapids wholesale works well for me- try using plenty of rags to keep the oxidized copper off the metal and on your rag.

[Sulfur]

Actually, if you mix the 2 (copper cream, with a light layer of Noxon afterwards) you can get a longer lasting finish.