Cleaning copper mod

[mw619]

Have a copper/carbon fiber Fuhattan clone that I dropped on the beach a couple days ago, and I just got around to cleaning it. There was a decent amount of sand on it, so I took it apart completely and rinsed every part in 70% alcohol, then cleaned them with q- tips. There was some brown residue (rust?) around some of the threads where sand was, but it's gone now. Is it ok to use iso. alcohol on copper?
A part of the button assembly that had some brown blemishes on it before, had a bit of white residue on it after rinsing it with alcohol. Not sure what it was, but I cleaned/dried everything as best as I could, and letting all the parts air dry now. For the atomizer (plume veil black clone), I just rinsed those parts with hot water (after removing cotton, but the coils were still in). Should I worry about the coils rusting, and put new ones in?
Not sure if this was the best way of cleaning this mod, but I just wanted to get all the sand/salt removed.

 

[Necrotic]

Alcohol is fine. As for coils kanthal doesn't rust.

 

[Portertown]

Clean the contact parts of your switch, along with all contact points with a pencil eraser. This needs to be done a least once per week with a copper mod.

 

[Wilazn]

Cover it in ketchup for an hour or two. The acidity in the ketchup will actually clean up a lot of the patina.

 

[Kprthevapr]

Mothers metal Polish will clean it up to new condition.
Metal Polish, 12-oz.

 

[93gc40]

Yeah that red stuff was oxidized copper, not rust. Coke will clean it also I believe. Constant application metal polish marked FOR copper, and handling with cotton gloves is your best option if you want to keep copper shinny. You bought the copper mod I suggest you give in to Mother Nature now and just let the copper do as copper does. It 's a war you cannot win. You can and must however maintain the battle at the contact and connection points, or your mod will stop working. Ugly does not harm function, dirty does though.

 

[gelgoog]

get a can of never-dull. you can get it at walmart. its a cleaner that is soaked in some kind of cotton. it works fast.

 

[Ren76]

Never dull works great on most metals, popular in the classic car scene. I was able to take off years of rust on a chrome bumper once.

 

[Thrasher]

+ 1 on the ketchup i didnt believe it tll I tried it

 

[Kprthevapr]

We used never dull in the navy to polish everything
I think the old school never dull in the blue can worked better I may be wrong but I've used both. Have a silver can that gets used daily.

 

[Kprthevapr]

+ 1 on the ketchup i didnt believe it tll I tried it

It will clean silver too! That's what my granny used to use on her silverware and copper bottom pots

 

[treehead]

Have a copper/carbon fiber Fuhattan clone that I dropped on the beach a couple days ago, and I just got around to cleaning it. There was a decent amount of sand on it, so I took it apart completely and rinsed every part in 70% alcohol, then cleaned them with q- tips. There was some brown residue (rust?) around some of the threads where sand was, but it's gone now. Is it ok to use iso. alcohol on copper?
A part of the button assembly that had some brown blemishes on it before, had a bit of white residue on it after rinsing it with alcohol. Not sure what it was, but I cleaned/dried everything as best as I could, and letting all the parts air dry now. For the atomizer (plume veil black clone), I just rinsed those parts with hot water (after removing cotton, but the coils were still in). Should I worry about the coils rusting, and put new ones in?
Not sure if this was the best way of cleaning this mod, but I just wanted to get all the sand/salt removed.

ANYBODY WHO NEEDS TO REMOVE PATINA, RUST, DIRST, RESIDUE ETC. FROM COPPER, USE LEMON JUICE!

Sorry for the caps I'm not yelling , this is just a trick my grandma taught me when I was younger, and it's something every copper mod vaper should know! SO mw619, if you use plain old lemon juice it will remove the rust/patina/dirt like NOTHING, it practically falls off!

Step 1 Rinse copper off with plain'ol tap water first.
Step 2 Get some lemon juice. (like "Realemon" the stuff that comes in a lemon shaped bottle, a real lemon works too, you can actually scrub the mod WITH the lemon too, that's how they used to do it. Really like someone else already said, ANYTHING ACIDIC will work, you just don't want it TOO acidic, lime juice also works.)
Step 3 Cover the entire mod with lemon juice and rub patina with fingers, most of it should come off almost immediately, HOWEVER I've had some stubborn patina/rust/grime spots where I simply got a small glass of lemon juice and let the juice stay on the area for a minute or two, then after the soak basically it should look brand new again.
Step 4 Rinse with cold water, and THOROUGHLY dry! Done!

(Hope this helps brother, good luck. As a fellow copper lover, I feel your pain lol, I'm looking for a new rig as we speak.)

 

[duc916]

As long as everyone's adding their organic methods of cleaning copper, a salt/vinegar solution with some "elbow grease" will give you instant results. Just give it a good hot water rinse afterwards.

 

[SynRacing35]

I understand the cleaning of the connectors but as for the rest of the mod I've seen a few people post about cleaning their copper mods completely and polishing them. Is this simply to improve the look or does cleaning and polishing the mod actually improve the functionality of the mod?

 

[Kprthevapr]

I just like mine shiny

 

[Wilazn]

I understand the cleaning of the connectors but as for the rest of the mod I've seen a few people post about cleaning their copper mods completely and polishing them. Is this simply to improve the look or does cleaning and polishing the mod actually improve the functionality of the mod?

Just for looks.

 

[Sgt.Rock]

Tarn-x also kicks .... on copper.

A few seconds is all it takes in most cases to clean anything copper.

 

[CheekyBroad]

I have a JD Tech Copper Stingray that I used to either use ketchup or a mixture of lemon juice and salt to polish it. Luckily, my mod really does not patina. It may get a little dull looking over time. Both of those methods worked the same and I thought my mod looked great.

However, recently I dropped my mod on a cement floor. There were a couple pock marks and scratches up the side of the mod as well as the atomizer. I brought it to a jeweler to see if they could buff it out and they didn't want to touch it in fear that they may discolor the original copper color. I then brought it to a metal refinishing business to see if they could give me suggestions. They suggested a car polishing compound.

I did tons of research on here to try to get my mod looking amazing again. I bought both Mother's Mag & Aluminum Polish as well as Simichrome. I first used Mother's with a microfiber cloth and polished the whole piece. The result was fantastic. Much improved over my original methods of polishing. I then decided to use the Simichrome to polish over it again to see if I could improve the results as well as use it to focus on the scratches. I also used this with a microfiber cloth and applied a decent amount of pressure. The result: scratches are still there, but dramatically improved and the rest of the mod came to a mirror finish. The result looks so good that the scratches really aren't noticeable unless you have the piece close for inspection.

 

[treehead]

I understand the cleaning of the connectors but as for the rest of the mod I've seen a few people post about cleaning their copper mods completely and polishing them. Is this simply to improve the look or does cleaning and polishing the mod actually improve the functionality of the mod?

NOPE! The only parts of the mod you want to clean to keep performance up are the THREADS (any on or in the mod, the 510 connection, and even your atty's 510 threads), of course all the CONTACTS (even on the battery), and basically anywhere the current is going to flow through.

The outside can be patina'd to hell and back, it doesn't affect conductivity. In fact I prefer the outside to patina (mainly because my Asmodus RDA is also patina'd), it's still shiny, it doesn't get any darker, gives it texture, and it's actually an oxide layer that will protect the copper underneath.

As you can see below on the right, it's patina'd but it's not like dark brown or anything, and I don't have to clean it because that's as patina'd as it ever gets. (The one on the left is my older one which I don't use anymore, it's really patina'd, but it looks pretty cool actually. It's like a natural camouflage or texture for copper. It shows it's experience, and what it's been through .)

Plus, it kinda gives it that cool 1950's "steampunk look" that all the kids are raving about these days .

 

[StonyArtichoke]

I always take cotton balls and swabs to clean threads and contacts, and then add a very small amount of Vaseline to every thread. It keeps dirt out of the threads and makes it a whole lot more glide-y.