![]() ![]() Horwitz decides to start in Charleston, South Carolina, at the site of Fort Sumter, where the war’s first shots were fired, but the War waylays him well before he gets there. The resulting exploration of place turns into a memorable cultural portrait of the South. Horwitz submerges himself in the South, since that’s where most of the war was fought, to find out for himself. In fact, he thought, why does the war hold such sway over so many people?Īnd thus begins one of the oddest of odysseys. Why does the war hold such sway over them. What makes these men tick, Horwitz wondered. (Reenactor friends of mine have since told me urine doesn’t really work, but it sure makes a colorful story.) “My wife woke up this morning, sniffed the air and said, ‘Tim, you’ve been peeing on your buttons again,’” the man told Horwitz. One reenactor brags about soaking his brass buttons overnight in a saucer filled with urine, which oxidized the brass to make it look like a button from the 1860s. Adhered to properly, this fundamentalism produced a time-travel high….” “They sought absolute fidelity to the 1860s: its homespun clothing, antique speech patterns, sparse diet and simple utensils. The “hardcore” reenactors “didn’t just dress up and shoot blanks,” Horwitz discovered. Horwitz brought them fresh coffee, and that’s when the questions began. ![]() Pee patina brass tv#A group of Civil War reenactors were filming a TV documentary on the battle of Fredericksburg, and during a break in the action, they collapsed in Horwitz’s yard. Then, one morning without warning, he awoke to the sound of gunshots in the street outside his home. Horwitz had a lifelong interest in the war, but it had lain mostly dormant throughout most of his adult life. That’s what I respect most about Horwitz’s work on the book: he takes the time to make an honest attempt at trying to understanding that which, I suspect, can never fully be understood. They take the time to do the story justice-and a story as complex as this one requires a lot of time if you’re going to be thorough and fair. This, I tell my students, is what good feature writers do. He asked questions, had conversations, observed, listened, and explored the landscape for himself. Here’s a guy who wandered around the South, talking to people about the legacy of the Civil War. Of course, Tony Horwitz already wrote it, nearly two decades ago (I can hardly believe it’s been that long). If there’s one book I’ve wished I’d written, it’s Confederates in the Attic. Out of interest here is a pic of the piece in question.#17: Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War by Tony Horwitz (1998) If all else fails it will have to go on as is and acquire it's ageing in the natural way.Īgain, thanks to all for the help. My problem is also that I would prefer to get the bridge on pretty soon so I really need something that works in a few hours (at most) rather than a few days. I was no good at chemistry at school but some of this sounds as if it might be hazardous. Just in case anyone is interested here is the list. I will ring the pharmacist tomorrow and see if it is possible to obtain any of them. I found some other recommendations but they all involve chemicals that may be hard to get. I don't know what it is so it's difficult to predict. I have done a bit more digging elsewhere and it seems as though brass comes in many forms (alloy combinations I suppose) and with different properties. I did get a little pink colour around the edges when combining the salt/vinegar with heat from a soldering torch but even then only slight. So far the bleach and the salt + vinegar combination have left it largely untouched. (Or carry them with you to a heavy workout and leave them in your sweats for a couple days and see what happens. The acid/salt of the vinegar should work if the bleach doesn't, but don't expect it to happen before your eyes. The ammonia and salt in the urine seems to have been a heavy rusting agent, and I think when polished brass wasn't wanted on a service weapon they used the same methods. The old backwoods gun makers, when the raw steel of the barrels were usually browned instead of blued would stand the barrel in a corner of a fence and urinate on them as well as let them weather, then sand lightly and oil heavily for the finish. ![]() I think the salt involved and the small amount of ammonia in the sweat was the acting agent, and I've seen heavy tarnish on Monday after a Saturday band trip. I used to polish brass for band uniforms and the worst tarnish was usually after hot, sweaty competitions especially when it was humid or rainy. I THINK most methods that use acids or chlorine beach will take at least a few hours or maybe a couple of days. ![]()
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