Revive & Thrive

I found this old brass lock at a yard sale. It was quite dirty and had a lot of patina but in working condition. There were a lot of marks and scratches, some quite deep. I couldn't remove the deepest ones as it would result in removing a lot of the thickness.

After disassembly, I cleaned the parts in soapy water and after that, I used the ketchup method of patina removal. The parts were then sanded with 240, 400 and 1200 grit sandpaper to remove most of the scratches before polishing to get a mirror-like finish. I removed rust from the key with a wire wheel and then I polished it. It was finally nickel-plated to protect it from rust.