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How Do I Refinish Brass

I am working on a project dealing with some brass lacquered lids that must be cleaned and prepared to receive a matte black paint finish and a clear protective coating. (Not my idea :-)) Need help as to the following: How do I remove the lacquer. 1) How do I treat the brass that is to be painted? 2) How do I prepare the brass surface for painting? 3) What type of paint should I use. 4) What kind of clear protective finish should be used? Your help will be greatly appreciated.

Grace C.
- New Orleans, Louisiana
2003

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You may want to search the site for 'refinish brass', Grace, because variations of this question have been asked and answered dozens of times already; so the responders are probably fatigued and will be slow to respond yet again :-)

Lacquer is removable with lacquer thinner ⇦this on eBay or Amazon [affil links] Warning! highly flammable! but it is possible, depending on the age of these "lids" that they are not actually brass. So step 1 is to take off the lacquer--and the result can go three ways: it worked, the clear coating didn't come off because it is not actually lacquer; it came off and you no longer have a brass color because it was actually lacquer with a brass-tone tint over nickel plating. Good luck.

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey