Polishing brass: Salty dog tricks welcome.

[partingclouds]

The galley sink has a very nice solid brass hand pump that I'd like to freshen with some polishing. Any tips for this using something simple and non-toxic would be welcome.

Thanks.

[Lepke]

I was in the navy, on the bridge, on ships mostly built in WWII. They had lots of brass. We used Nevr-Dull. A cotton wadding impregnated with brass cleaner. After doing many hours polishing brass panel covers we came up with coating the polished brass with a clear plastic coating after removing the polish residue with acetone. We never had to polish that brass again. The coating was varathane in a spray can.