Hi Maureen,
It is difficult to answer your question without more information, such as, is it just surface dirt, are there corrosion products to be removed?
You may have this from CCI, but here's a link
The Cleaning, Polishing and Protective Waxing of Brass and Copper – Canadian Conservation Institute (CCI) Notes 9/3Plus, as a side note, the conservation community has been moving away from Triton X-100 (toxicity issues) and substituting with surfactants like Ecosurf EH-6
Craig
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Craig Deller
Fellow
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Original Message:
Sent: 08-09-2022 15:00
From: Maureen Harper
Subject: Cleaning Copper
Hi,
We recently purchased a copper medal that is quite dirty. What would be a resource to look at (on-line or a publication) to get recommendations on how to gently surface clean it?
Would you recommend using a Sunshine Polishing Cloth, which we use to remove tarnish on silver medals? Or we have used a few drops of a non-ionic detergent, such as Triton X-100, mixed in distilled water and applied with a Q-tip for surface cleaning other metals.
Any thoughts appreciated!
Maureen
Maureen K. Harper (she/her/hers)
Collections Manager
Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library
33 Marrett Road (street) / P. O. Box 519 (mailing)
Lexington, MA 02420-0519
Phone: 781-457-4112 (office) or 978-502-3616 (cell)
Email: mharper@srmml.org