Orchorsol portable SOLD

[poodling around]

In my turntable and in the ones I see in the photo, the fittings are made of chemically blackened brass. I am a production engineer and I deal with such coatings on a daily basis.
I do not recommend anyone to polish such elements because they will look bad, the best option for restoration is to purchase an amateur oxidizer or have such elements chemically blackened in a professional facility.
As an example, I found this oxidizing fluid:

https://www.caswelleurope.co.uk/flemish ... int-473ml/

Copper plating steel is a very cheap galvanic process, so even if the fittings were steel, coating them with copper, silver or even gold would be cheap, the coatings are microns thick. However, in the case of this turntable, the fittings are made of brass, which blackens very easily. However, the coating is unstable and wears off quickly.

in the example of the crank escutheon you can see the original black finish, where the elements werent in contact with human sweat and friction they are nice, black. coating abrasions are visible in places exposed to friction.

Uh-Oh.

[epigramophone]

I rest my case (no pun intended).

[Steve]

In my turntable and in the ones I see in the photo, the fittings are made of chemically blackened brass. I am a production engineer and I deal with such coatings on a daily basis.
I do not recommend anyone to polish such elements because they will look bad, the best option for restoration is to purchase an amateur oxidizer or have such elements chemically blackened in a professional facility.
As an example, I found this oxidizing fluid:

https://www.caswelleurope.co.uk/flemish ... int-473ml/

Copper plating steel is a very cheap galvanic process, so even if the fittings were steel, coating them with copper, silver or even gold would be cheap, the coatings are microns thick. However, in the case of this turntable, the fittings are made of brass, which blackens very easily. However, the coating is unstable and wears off quickly.

in the example of the crank escutheon you can see the original black finish, where the elements werent in contact with human sweat and friction they are nice, black. coating abrasions are visible in places exposed to friction.

My French Cliftophone does not appear to have "chemically blackened brass". The external corners are definitely brass (or brass-plate) which has clearly been plated over with copper, a completely superfluous process it might appear if the aim was to blacken the finish afterwards. The fittings are not exactly black anyway, now I examine it in natural daylight, but look more like naturally darkened copper, a sort of "bronzing" effect. The opposite sides which have been protected against the rexine all the time are quite greenish due to oxidation of the copper, contrary to the belief that they should probably appear like new due to the "protection" from the elements.

It is possible that various makers applied hardware fittings bought in off the shelf that weren't exactly "standardised" to suit one thing or another. The Orchorsol portable appears to be copper plated to my eyes but as I said these machines might well have different bought-in fittings. Anyway, I'm 100% certain my French Cliftophone has been plated over brass and steel to provide a uniform copper finish which was not blackened identical to the machine from your collection. Whether it should be highly polished is a moot point and perhaps depends on the tastes of the individual owner?

I appreciate that copper plating might be inexpensive today but rather like chrome plating, it wasn't always.