I stumbled over this tips on how to give brass that nice antique patina at B'Sue Boutiques. So I ordered some cider vinegar and soaked a couple of test pieces in a mix of salt and vinegar.
I don't know if it was the vinegar or the fact that the oven got a bit warmer than it said in the instructions, but after my first baking, the brass seemed to have turned more copper coloured than antiqued. Kind of the copper tone brass can be, if not yellow but red brass. It said to repeat the result if the brass wasn't dark enough so I did this -- soaked the pieces again and lowered the temperature. This time they lost a bit of the pinkish copper tone and turned more brownish, they way I wanted.
It's a tad hard to tell from the photo alone, but above you can see an untreated floral drop to the left, the coppery drop baked once and the slightly more golden brown drop to the right.
Even if it was boring to wait, especially when soaking the brass a second time, I did enjoy this experiment and will probably use the method again. And I will try to lower the temperature from the beginning to see if that will keep the brass from turning too coppery.
you dont say how much salt, vinegar, how long to soak , what temp, how long to bake.
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