Posted in: Percussion by Binux on July 4, 2007 | 9 Comments
A review of some products and some tips that can help you cleaning your cymbals.
Are your cymbals dirty? Are your fingerprints on them or they have black or white dots? Well, here I present a review of some products that can clean them and some tips to get you cymbal shinier as they were new.
Here there are a few tips for clearing your cymbals for a concert or just for keeping them nice.
First of all, the cymbals are made of copper, silver, bronze and others, all of them are metals, so if you use to clean them water and you don’t dry them carefully you will obtain a green cymbal, yes, a green cymbal. This is because (in the cymbals with high percent of copper) the copper oxide is of that color, unless you want to change their color I will warn you not to use water, or in the case you wash them with water is better to dry them very well! And in a long period of time that oxide will make thinner your cymbals.
Some people use lemon and vinegar to clean their stuff, the steps are:
Maybe this method is effective but is really aggressive to the cymbals (you use an acid with a metal), apart from dirt it can take out fine layers of the metal, and in the future it will change their sound. Naturally lemon and vinegar are not the best cleaners.
The other option is the liquid called Groove Juice. This time, this liquid is made for cleaning cymbals. It is sold in many music stores for this use. This product won’t do anything bad but can take the logos very easy and is not effective for all cymbals because is a general product. However, I think is a good option to try because it won’t hurt your cymbals.
Another option is the cream called Brasso that is thought to prevent the metals to being oxidize. This product can clean your cymbals and protect them from oxide, most people say it works great, better then the brand’s cleaner. It leaves a thin film of oil that doesn’t let the metal be tarnished. This product removes the protective wax coat of some cymbals like Paiste.
To finish off, the best option and a guaranteed one is to use the brand’s cream or liquid for this use. It will never affect your cymbals and it should clean the at least a little, the second option is to use Groove Juice that is a nice product and both are made for this use!
Sune November 6th, 2007 at 11:31 pm
Take a bowl that is big enough to contain your cymbals and fill it with boiling hot water and put aluminium foil in the bottom and 100gram of salt. Now put your cymbals on top of the aluminium foil and wait a few minuts.
Your cymbals comes out clean and shiny.
Tim November 20th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
I dont know how this will work but I’m going to try it , my high-hats are almost black , and my thin crash too ,(haven’t used them for 2 years , or my kit for that matter),but the rest of the cymbals were new and virtually unused and are still very shiny … I’ll comment back here when I FINALLY get around to doing it …many thanks for the cleaning tip and happy “shiny” drumming !!
Alex April 5th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
Hey Guys does brasso change bronze cymbals color?Also does it clean very good?please respond!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Alex April 5th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
ALSO IS BRASSO GOOD FOR BRONZE CYMBALS OR DOES IT HARM THEM?
ric essenberg December 4th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
I use a product called Wright’s Copper Cream. Just wet the cymbal smear on the cream,work it in a while, repeat as necessary,then rinse and dry your cymbal thoroughly. All the black stuff on the pad goes down the drain.Bingo you’re done.
Chiz Holm December 25th, 2008 at 11:00 am
I use groove juice on my Paiste 602 and rudes. Ok , fair enough, ya know.
N. pert January 16th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
Hey guys,
when cleaning cymbals, NEVER use water! My Dad did that to my first kit and completely destroyed it! I don’t have much time for more tips, so visit my website at
http://www.neilpeart.com
David Tore February 7th, 2009 at 8:31 pm
I heard that breathing on the cymbals and wiping them with a rag works but i dont think it will
caleb September 26th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
Hey…i had a terrible crack in my sabian medium crash. So i bought J-Bweld to fix the crack. Now the crack is covered in the grey weld. What do i do? Any suggestions??