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Hi everyone, so a question I get asked a lot is should I clean my cymbals and there's a
few different schools of thought on this including just leaving them in their natural state and
apparently they sound better. I can't tell any difference between polished cymbals and
unpolished cymbals but if you can tell the difference don't polish them! It's up to you.
I don't clean mine very often mainly since I just don't have time to. At the minute they're
definitely due a clean - this one is particularly filthy. So I've been cleaning my cymbals in
the same way for the last twenty to twenty five years and have fine tuned this method
over a period of time and find it works really well. There's a lot of people frown on this
method of doing it but I find it works well. You can see how you find it and if it doesn't
work for you then fine and perhaps try one of the other cymbal cleaners on the market.
So what you're going to need is, and for a start if you can do it outside brilliant since
it's a mucky job - you need a blanket down, doing it on the grass is great because you
have a nice soft surface underneath and it's not going to damage your cymbals. One thing
I should say is don't do it in bright sun light - today is ideal since it's a bit overcast
and cloudy which is perfect really. If it's too bright and sunny the Brasso will dry on
the cymbal too quickly and you don't want that. We'll come to that in a bit. So what
I use is Brasso, you need White Spirits, that's filthy white spirits by the way - I didn't
have any clean white spirits - don't follow my example, I just haven't had time to go
out and buy any clean white spirits. It'll do the job but you should really, for the
sake of 50 pence buy some clean stuff rather than using dirty white spirits which is BAD
. Anyway, you need lots of kitchen roll and an old duster. So what I generally
do is work on two cymbals at a time and you'll see why in a moment. I find working on two
at the same time works really well. So I'm going to start on this one first and this
is a Zildjian Custom Hybrid China, and as I say I don't do this very often - the one
disadvantage about cleaning your cymbals too often is that it will rub the logos and things
off over time so I try not to do it too often - this is a pretty old cymbal and you can
see how much the logos have gone and that's just from cleaning it - nothing else is making
that logo come off but that's about a twenty year old cymbal. Anyway, we'll start on this
one - so the first thing to do is get plenty kitchen roll and Brasso - give it a good shake.
Now, what you want to do here is pour it on the cloth - if it goes on the cymbal, like
there, rub it in straight away because if you leave that to sit on the cymbal it will
mark it. So if you pour directly on to the cymbal or if it spills on the cymbal like
that don't leave it! Rub it in straight away. So just a light rub, especially over the logos.
So just a very light rub around at the moment - now there's two different techniques to
cleaning cymbals, I find, depending on whether it's a brilliant cymbal, which believe it
or not that is, or whether it's got the traditional kind of grooved finish that the outer portion
of the Hybrid cymbals have. The inner portion is a brilliant finish so we're using two slightly
different techniques on the same cymbal. You can see straight away all the muck that's
coming off. So I'm just going to work on this for a little bit - I'm not pressing hard.
Again, oops - a bit too much but that's alright - if you spill any rub it in straight away,
don't let it sit there in pools 'cause you get these horrible drip marks on your cymbals
if you do. So I'm working around in the grooves of the cymbal - so I'm working in circles,
all the time following the grooves of the cymbal. So I'm going to start just with the
brilliant bit, and brilliant means shiny! ...and that will probably do for that - so
around the logo I'm being really light - not pressing on the logo too much as it comes
off quite easily. I don't know if I've ever cleaned this particular cymbal before. All
I'm doing is working around the grooves - now you can see it's turning black from all the
muck that's coming off the cymbal, but that's fine - if the cloth gets really dirty then
change it - you're going to need loads of kitchen roll! ...or paper towel or whatever
you call it. The sun's coming out a bit but it's not too bright and it'll be alright - the
only thing is with the sun, as I say, it will bake the Brasso on to the cymbal and it makes
it a lot harder to get back off. So I think that will do for that one. I'm just going
to put that in the shade and let that dry for a little bit. So now I'm going to work
on this one - so same again, you're only working on one side at a time - this one is particularly
filthy...
You do sometimes get the odd stubborn patch that just won't come off - I don't know what
it is - maybe something's been spilled or dripped on it, but you do sometimes get patches
that just won't get clean and depending how clean you want the cymbal to be sometimes
you just have to give up on the logo. This isn't a particularly expensive cymbal - I'm
not that bothered about losing the logo on it. On things like my Custom Hybrids I'm a
bit more precious about keeping the logos on those - if you ever want to sell your cymbals,
and just because they look better with the logo on, if you ever want to sell them you'll
lose a lot of value if the logo is gone on a relatively new cymbal. You can see what
I mean about this being a mucky job by the way. It really is an outside job. One thing
I have done in the past, if all you're doing is removing mucky finger marks and they're
not as disgusting as that - by the way here we have a drip that's gone through to the
other side and it's already started to make a drip mark - I think I've caught it just
in time, but you do have to be careful. Anyway, what I have done in the past is use a degreaser,
Swarfega works really well or perhaps washing up liquid - I don't know, haven't tried that,
but any sort of degreaser will work pretty well just to lift finger marks off the cymbal,
and then just wash it off in the shower or with a hose, as long as you dry them properly
afterwards. I don't see any problems with that - I'm sure someone will tell me otherwise.
Just make sure you properly dry them afterwards. Anyway, that one's about done - right, put
that to one side. So I'm going to come back to this one - so the first thing I'm going
to do is get some clean kitchen towel and just give it a light rub over just to get
the worst of the dirt off it. Again, you'll see the black that comes off the cymbal when
you do this. So this is just a light rubbing over to get the worst off. So now... you'll
see, from the Brasso, it's left a lot of dirt in the grooves of the cymbal and that's the
next thing that we're going to get rid of. So the way to get rid of that is white spirits.
So be careful with this stuff - it is flammable I think! You need loads of it - and just cover
the cymbal with it - as much as you want. What this does is lift the dirt out of the
grooves of the cymbal. So give it a good rub in - you don't have to press hard. That'll
do. Give it a little dry - I'm not finished yet but that's already looking pretty good.
Put that to one side and I'll come back to this one and do exactly the same thing - quick
rub and then (I should really use a clean bit!) loads of white spirits just to lift
the dirt out the grooves. There we go! Again, give it a quick dry .
Come back to this one - this last stage, you don't really want to do this if there's any
wet white spirits still on it. So get a duster and you're doing the polishing now. Get in
to the brilliant bit first and you can give that a good polish. In the non-brilliant bit
just a light rub really just to get the white spirits off - sometimes if you can still see
dirty in the grooves you might want to give it another go over with white spirits to help
lift that dirt out. Again, careful on the logo that you're not rubbing too hard - that'll
do. I'm not going to bother cleaning the other side - it's pretty immaculate. I'm happy with
that! So then same with this one - polish it. So that's it - bit of an improvement!
It's not taken long - I need to do the underside of that, I'll do it later on but you get the
general idea. So there you go - I hope that's been useful!