Painting brass handles? General decorating topics, questions and answers. find help, tips and advice on completing your decorating projects

[A Meade]

I am redecorating my hall and stairs including all the doors. The house was built in the 80's and all the doors have brass handles. They look OK and they're in good condition. They were obviously varnished when new but now much has worn away and they look tarnished. I am reluctant to replace them as I am trying to keep the costs down. Can anyone tell me if they can be painted? Has anyone tried to do this?

[rosebery]

If the lacquer has worn off why not just polish them?

[A Meade]

I would just polish them if the varnish was evenly worn off. Most of them have some tarnishing where it has worn off but they look unsightly in their present state. I guess I will have to remove the old varnish off them all....something I wanted to avoid as there are 16 of them!

[rosebery]

Mmm I see. I think you'd be hard pushed to find a paint that will stick to both brass and lacquer so you are between a rock and a hard place.

You could spend days and days on this. Counting the cost of your labour (work it out you'll be frightened if you assume your hourly rate at work) then it may well be more cost effective to replace. I still think I'd be tempted to remove the remainder of the lacquer and polish.

Cheers

[A Meade]

thanks for all your advice. I have already started to clean one set. they do look good so I guess that's what I'll do. it will be a slow process but i'm in no real hurry! Painting them always seemed to be the lazy option and I don't think they would look very good either...thanks again