Polishing up a cymbal

I just got a cymbal to polish… supposedly 3 days of Danshui weather does this to a new cymbal:

So I am using a steel brush and buffing compound on an angle grinder to polish it:

Almost finished:

Now we can go back to our scheduled work…

image

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Very satisfying.

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I may be wrong but that’s the top part of a pair of hihat cymbals no? Where’s the bottom?

The owner wasn’t sure how to go about it so he had me polish the one half first… it’s a lot of work getting it shiny because there are all these grooves and it looks like the owner attempted to try to get it off, and only made it worse (like using windex or something). The green was basically caked on and I had to use a steel brush to get the green stuff off first. He might ask me to do the other half after he finds out how much work it took to get it shiny again.

I wonder how much difference there is sound wise? Must be like playing a guitar with old strings on.

I’m not sure… I don’t think it really affects sound that much but it does look real ugly. Zildian sells a cream that is used to polish cymbals but if it turns green like this it’s going to take a LOT of elbow grease to clean it properly. The green was caked on badly. I think you’re supposed to use the cream every so often (maybe once a month) to remove the tarnish. But normally new cymbals have a coat of lacquer on it to keep it from tarnishing during shipment, and they wear off as you use them. I imagine a really thick layer of patina might muffle the sound a little.

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Reminds me of when we had to clean our wind instruments on our band…
We didn’t have such cream, so what did we use? Toothpaste!
Works like a charm and still gives you a fresh breath!

Ketchup is also working wonders on brass and copper.