Polishing a fire extinguisher

3twinridges

3twinridges

Well-known member
Spent this weekend polishing an original fire extinguisher for a 52 F1 build. I stripped the lacquer with acetone, hit with gray cutting compound, tripoli, white polish, and finally jewelers rouge. One final flannel buff with the jewelers and I am good for lacquer.

Question is on the label. I taped it off to preserve the logo and writing but it hinders the overall quality. Tips on how I can polish it also without ruining the red paint?

JB
 

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don't touch it, anything you put on it will wipe away the letters on the label. For work when needing a replacement motor or part I use grease off to clean labels enough to read a serial/model number knowing that wiping off the years of organic debris may wipe out what I need.

Even using warm water with foamy soap fades out the letters and numerals.
 
nice job! on labels like that, silk screened most likely, i use a fine polish compound, or mothers mag polish very lightly to just brighten up the color. go easy, check often with a clean soft cloth. a few swirls lightly is all it should take to get clean color again.
 
Just for information, I for one collect Fire Extinguisher and can assure you if it is a old bottle and you shine it up, it may look great, but you just dropped the value of it alot. If you don't care then thats fine. A shiny bottle on a old car sets it off. Just thought I would add my 2-cents though.
 
My new go-to cleaner is Marvel Mystery Oil. Seriously, it works great. Last thing I shined up with it was a vintage actual MMO metal can I found in the trash.
 
Yeh; For the WW2 trucks those extinguishers are necessary and a big deal for judging. Just dispose of the carbon-tet if present. I actually saved my high school chevy with a carbon-tet and it was not pleasant stuff. Newc
 
Thanks for the comments guys, I will take it straight into lacquer as tempting as it is to restore the label! Afraid any buffing will remove the ID number on it.

JB
 
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