hey guys it's flip and today I'm going
to show you how to clean hard water
mineral deposits off a bronze faucet and
make this look like this let's do it
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alright guys so my friend asked me to
come over and help him take out this
faucet we were gonna go get a new one
it's obviously been neglected I was in a
seldom-used part of his house and after
talking about we decided I was gonna
just give it one shot of cleaning it
before we just got rid of it it was on
its last days anyways so we decided it
was just worth giving it one shot at
salvaging a little more life out of this
if we could do it cheap with stuff just
laying around his house without spending
any money and it actually turned out
pretty decent so first now a disclaimer
this is only a fix I would try on a
faucet that's close to being replaced or
is in pretty bad shape like this one
because this type of cleaning and
scrubbing can damage the finish bronze
is a live finish which means it requires
maintenance and frequent cleaning this
one obviously didn't get that so we had
nothing to lose on it this fix is not
perfect but it salvaged a little more
life out of this one I wouldn't do it on
a new or expensive faucet but having
said that here's how I did it step one
I'm gonna use a microfiber cloth and
make sure the faucets nice and dry step
two that I took some cheap generic white
vinegar and poured it into a bowl enough
to soak the cloth in then I cut the
bottom part of an old t-shirt off and
put it in the bowl and soaked it
completely
step 3 I took the bottom part of that
t-shirt soaked in vinegar and I wrapped
it all around the faucet I kind of
weaved it in and out around the spout
and the handles trying to get it
touching as much of the surface area
around the bottom as possible
then I let it soak there for about an
hour and a half
all right so it's an hour and a half
later and we're gonna take off our cloth
and as you can see this did a pretty
good job of getting off a decent amount
of the mineral deposits and what it left
behind it has softened up a lot so now
I'm just gonna go to work trying to
screw up some of this off you can use a
toothbrush you can use a sponge
I even tried using the t-shirt and just
scraping some of it off with the
fingernail like I said before this was a
faucet that was on its way to the
garbage so I wasn't too concerned with
damaging the finish on it some parts of
this faucet even had corrosion so bad
that it was irreversible so we were just
trying to make it look nice
Step five we're gonna make a deep
cleaning paste to get into some of those
cracks and crevices that we weren't able
to get all the mineral deposits out of
and the same ball have been using I'm
going to put a teaspoon of salt and one
cup of distilled white vinegar then stir
it up until all the salt is dissolved
next I'm going to add flour I'm gonna
keep adding flour to this until it gets
thick enough you want it to be about the
consistency of toothpaste so you just
need to keep adding flour to it somewhat
solidifies now going back on this I
would probably cut this recipe in half I
think it would have been just fine with
a half a teaspoon of salt and a half a
cup of vinegar as you can see it took a
lot of flour to solidify this much
vinegar now the fun part now you're
gonna take your paste and apply it to
the faucet you want to try to rub it in
to any cracks and crevices that you can
then you're gonna let it sit for about
an hour
it should somewhat dry up and solidify
step seven I first used a paper towel to
get some of the big chunks of paste off
so they wouldn't all go down the drain
then I just used some warm water and
just rinsed it off and kept wiping it
off until I got all the paste off the
faucet
then I did a little bit more scrubbing
and picking away at the mineral deposits
when the hard water evaporates it leaves
behind calcium and some of this really
doesn't want to come off
so this is how it came out after the
vinegar soaking and the vinegar salt
flour paste and a lot of scrubbing I
could have left it just like this
because some of the bronze is corroded
beyond repair but I decided to take it
one step further just to make it look a
little nicer and what do you need to do
that all you need is a black sharpie
that's right not the most professional
tool in the world but like I said
earlier we were trying to make this look
nicer without spending any money with
just stuff we could find around the
house and this worked it's not the
perfect fix and it's not the exact color
match but for not spending any money I
think it came out pretty well all it
took was a little bit of time and it
salvaged some more life out of this
faucet if you don't mind spending a
little bit of money you can buy a
touch-up marker in a bronze color that
will match a little bit better the only
problem with using the black sharpie
like I did is that at certain angles you
can see it because the marker is a
different Sheen than the bronze but
overall I think it looks better than it
did thanks for watching
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