How to clean a badge: GOI paste, Aspidol and other ways of removing the oxide layer

Surely a couple of months ago you did not even think about how to clean the badge, but the harsh reality of the army everyday life taught you that this piece of metal should shine with a pristine shine. What are the ways for this for years used by soldiers and can they be used for buckles of a non-Army belt? Let's understand!

What is cleaned with badges in the army?

Special time, desire, and the opportunity to apply in the army sophisticated ways of cleaning plaids folk remedies or expensive specialized chemistry is not, so you can clean the badge either by what they give, or by what was at hand.

Leading in popularity - in part because in the army it is usually issued for free - developed in the 1940s GOI paste, which is based on an abrasive powder of chromium oxide. The paste is very dense and has a green color. It is used not only for cleaning plasters, but also for polishing any other metal surfaces, depending on the size of the abrasive.

Also popular is the "Asidol M", which is now often used by numismatists to clean the found coins. This tool has a whitish color, is an oil product and works faster due to corrosion of the oxide layer than by scraping it with an abrasive.

Well, the most popular tool - tooth powder or toothpaste, which also have abrasive particles. However, the time for polishing paste will go a little more: the abrasive in it is very small, so even now it will take longer and harder.

Council

To properly clean the space inside the star, the army usually use a toothbrush that has served its own or even a needle for particularly difficult places.

How correctly to clean the plate with GOI paste?

Once the GOI paste is the most popular of all the means, we'll start with it. To begin with, note that if there are deep scratches on the badge, the green dense paste will clog in them, making a badge though shiny, but with green stripes.

If there are no scratches, then we do the following:

• take a piece of felt or felt and paste;
• put the paste on the fabric;
• polish the badge for a couple of minutes

The purity of the GOI paste lasts a long time, and the brilliance turns out to be dazzling, just like you wanted!

By the way

Now sold felt felt polishing wheels with GOI paste, which is very convenient, but it costs more.

How do I clean a soldier's badge?

If you are not in the army and the GOI paste is not at hand, you will have to look for alternative methods of giving a breeze primordial appearance.

• "Asidol".Traditionally it is applied to the same felt and is used as GOI paste, but now the "Asidol" of the Soviet model is not found in the daytime with fire, and "Asidol M" is used correctly in a slightly different way: apply a thin layer of paste on the plate, wait about a minute, polish, while wiping the paste, lint-free material: felt, felt, and at least lint-free napkins for cleaning. The surface after such processing becomes noble-matt, but here cleanliness, judging by responses, keeps not so longly as it would be desirable.
• Tooth groove and tooth powder. With them the principle is the same as with GOI paste, but for want of felt, you can use an ordinary toothbrush.
• Also help to get rid of the plaque can slurry from soda and vinegar, which will work simultaneously due to abrasive and due to the corrosive ability of vinegar.
• You can wipe the badge with acetone or ammonia. The main thing is not to leave the metal under their influence for too long, otherwise the product may deteriorate.
• If the oxide layer is practically absent, but the badge lacks freshness and gloss, clean the buckle with ordinary alcohol or peroxide. To polish them, of course, the badge will not work, but as an express means will fit.
• And you can also write down the solution recipe: mix the water and peroxide 1: 1, add a little ammonia to the mixture and soak the plate in the solution for about 10 hours. Wipe, rinse - and it will be like new!
• In addition, help can be found in household chemicals. Means for washing shells, both in the form of a cream, and powder, or liquids for giving shine a plate will approach.
• It is said that it helps to boil a plate in potato broth or a saturated solution of citric acid for about an hour.
• If money is not at all pitiful, then you can use liquid to clean precious metals or even take the product to a jewelry shop where the plaque is surely cleaned perfectly.

Board

In fact, any tool with an abrasive will help you properly polish the badge and give it shine. It is only desirable to use industrial means: if you want to use, for example, an abrasive made of sugar, salt or sand, scratches on the badge can not be avoided.

Can I clean the buckle of a conventional belt in these ways?

But you do not only need to clean the plaques on the belts for soldiers in the army: what will happen if you experience one of these ways on the buckle of your belt?

If the buckle is made entirely of metal, then any of these tools will really help remove the oxide layer and return the former shine. But most buckle belts are now simply chrome or covered with multi-colored enamel. To clean such products by the ways listed above it is impossible because of risk of formation of scratches and spoilage of enamel, and hardly it is required: enamel and chrome do not become victims of oxide plaque. On them, a maximum can accumulate ordinary dirt.

Now that you are fully armed, cleaning an army plate will seem like a trivial matter, and you certainly will not be sent to the outfit because of the dull piece of brass that gives the green.