BEFORE:
AFTER:
Harry Cangany is the new owner of this set.
I recently acquired this 1954-55 Radio King set from someone who rescued it from a neighbor who was going to “throw it out”. It’s in pretty darn good shape. Just some fading of the white marine pearl wrap and some rust and tarnish on the nickel plated metal parts. The wrap needed a light cleaning. There is also a little bit of reinforcement ring de-lamination that needs to be addressed. Shouldn’t be much of a problem to repair, if at all. My rule of thumb on that is “if it ain’t rattlin’ or fixin’ to fall apart, leave it alone”. I’ll update my clean up and restoration of this kit as I go along. The first thing I want to tell you about is a great new rust remover that works better than any other substance that I’ve used, and I’ve used all of them; Naval jelly, coca cola, vinegar, ketchup - all sorts of household and commercial products. This one is the easiest and most effective by far. It’s called Metal Rescue by Workshop Hero. I happened on some product videos that were pretty impressive, so I decided to buy some and give it a try. I have no idea how long this stuff has been around, so I might be late to the game here. I soaked the tension rods, t handle rods and claws in a plastic tub filled with the Metal Rescue Bath overnight and the result was pretty astounding. They came out clean as a whistle. They had seventy years of rust, tarnish, and gunk on them. All the nickel plated metal on the kit is pretty dull. I wish I had taken “before” pictures but here is the “after” picture. You can see that they are shiney and clean. This was only after taking them out of the bath and simply drying them off with a cloth. No polishing.
I do have before and after pictures of the 13” hoops. Both hoops were in the same condition as the one on the left. I used the gel version of Metal Rescue on one of them. I painted the gel on with a brush then wrapped it in Saran type plastic wrap per the instructions, so that the gel doesn’t dry out. Again, I only wiped off the gel - no polishing. You can see that the one on the right that was treated is reflecting my image while the one on the left is not treated and is dull and tarnished. All these pictures were shot with fluorescent lighting. It was raining. Daylight might even show more contrast.
I’m sure these will clean up and shine up even better after a little polishing and elbow grease. I will post more pics of the Metal Rescue products results as I tackle the lugs and other parts. (update: All the metal cleaned up and shined and up very well, except the floor tom rims came out a little discoloroed and “mottled”. I guess that proves what my friend Aaron Mlasko of Mlasko Drums says; “Nickel is tricky”
Metal Rescue is bio-degradable and not toxic. It is safe to put your hands into. It is re-usable. The only conditions that are suggested are to use it in temperatures of 68 degrees and higher, and to cover any containers while soaking so that it doesn’t evaporate. On warning: It does not work on cymbals: I tried it on a couple of brass and bronze junk cymbals and it did nothing but turn them black
Here is a picture and video of the Metal Rescue product. I ordered mine from Amazon.
