Things You'll Need
Pewter polish
Polishing cloth
Linseed oil
Fine-grade steel wool
In general, pewter is less expensive and easier to work with than most alloys or metals. With a low melting point, pewter is easier to cast than silver or other metals, and so is used to make a large variety of objects from plates and forks to pins, badges and belt buckles. Despite its accessibility, pewter is not very resilient and is easily scratched by wear and tear or certain types of cleaners. There are a number of methods you can apply to remove these scratches from your pewter.
Step 1
Polish the pewter surface with a polishing cloth designed for use on silver or other jewelry. These soft cloths will not damage the pewter, and this initial polish will remove any surface dirt or dust.
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Step 2
Apply professional pewter polish to the surface with the soft polishing cloth. Pewter polish is often available at jewelry retailers and at some conveniences stores. You can also replace the pewter polish with linseed oil. This basic polish will remove the appearance of many small scratches.
Step 3
Lightly buff out deeper scratches with fine-grade steel wool. Generally, the finest-grade steel wool available at home improvement and hardware stores is 0000 grade.
Step 4
Rinse the surface with plain warm water and wipe with a clean polishing cloth to remove residual polish or steel wool dust.
Warning
Never clean pewter with abrasive chemical cleaners, because these cleaners can severely scratch and deteriorate the pewter.
Do not use a coarser grade of steel wool--it will worsen the scratches.
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