How To Clean Drum Cymbals With Household Items

Do you need to buy polish to get good, clean and shiny looking cymbals? This is a question I see pop up in forums a lot and it's not hard to see why. A lot of drummers don't want to spend unnecessarily on extras especially if they can get comparable results with things they have lying around. So after endlessly searching through forum after forum looking for answers, here are some conclusions I came to.

While you can clean cymbals with basic household cleaners, I would exercise some minor caution in doing so. Most of the household cleaners people use for this (ie: lemon juice, ketchup, vinegar) work as cleaning agents because they contain varying levels of acidity. Acids will erode metals to varying degrees and eventually turn into rust. However, it's this exact process that makes it work as a powerful cleaning agent for metals. So unless you clean your cymbals regularly over many many years, this will be of little concern.

How does cleaning affect the sound?

In my experience cleaning will affect the sound of the cymbal at least a little. When a lot of dirt and grime get into the cymbal grooves, it will affect the sound often coming across as darker and lower pitched (especially if there's years of buildup). Keep in mind that's not necessarily a bad thing, just keep it mind when considering whether you want to clean them at all.

If for instance you have an old filthy ride cymbal that you've been using since 1998 but love the sound, think twice about using anything at all on it and just be content with leaving dirty. It's all up to your own subjective tastes to determine that.

Brilliant vs Traditional finish

Brilliant finish cymbals are machine buffed and polished to give it a glossy and shiny look, whereas traditional cymbals have a more natural look. This actually makes a big difference when considering how you want to clean your cymbals.

Cymbal polish should only be used on brilliant finish cymbals.It is critical that you remember this because if you use polish on a traditional finish, it can leave marks and even permanently discolor the cymbal. For this reason, the options listed below are probably the best bet for traditional cymbals.

For a cymbal with a brilliant finish however, all the cleaning agents i'll mention will work to one extent or another.

Common household cleaners

Lemons

Lemons is one of the most common cleaning agents I see talked about on drum forums. Like I mentioned before, the thing that makes these everyday work as items is that most of them contain some level of acidity which will erode the metal (slightly) and clean really well in the process. Lemons land at a 2.5 on the PH scale (0 being most acidic 14 being pure alkaline) which makes it one the better options for this.

To clean your cymbals with lemon juice follow these steps:

1. Cut a lemon in half with a chefs knife. (Just for safety)

2. Thoroughly rub the cymbal with one half of the lemon making sure to go along with the grooves.

3. Repeat and rinse with warm water as necessary.

One thing to note is if you want to keep your logo intact make sure apply lemon juice AROUND the logo. The citric acid will make the logo fade away fast especially after repeated usage.

Ketchup

Ketchup is yet another option I see commonly cited on forums. The interesting thing about this one is how much lighter duty it is compared to lemon juice. Ketchup has a PH scale 3.9 (remember lemon juice is 2.5) so it lands at an enticing middle ground for those wanting a clean cymbal but are worried about eroding the metals too much.

To clean cymbals with ketchup follow these simple steps:

1. Just squirt a boatload of ketchup on the cymbal itself.

2. Even out with a paper towel or a paintbrush making sure to get into the cymbal grooves.

3. Let sit for around 30 minutes and rinse with warm water.

Also worth noting is you probably won't have to worry about going around the logo as it's not really strong enough to make it fade away.

Vinegar and water

This is one options I've tried throughout the years and have had pretty consistent results with. Much like lemons, it lands on the PH scale of about 2.5 so it works for roughly the same reason. The water is not really necessary for this to work mind you, but I like to mix a little in instead of pure vinegar to save a little money.

To clean cymbals with water and vinegar follow these steps:

1. Place cymbal in a shallow tub (Bathtub or industrial sink usually works well)

2. Mix three parts vinegar to one part water. (However much is needed to cover the surface)

3. Let it sit in the mixture for around 25-30 minutes

4. Rinse with warm water and dry off with a microfiber cloth.

The reason this is my favourite method is somewhat arbitrary; i'm more likely to have vinegar than anything else here lying around the house, but in my experience it still works for getting rid of grime in between the cymbal grooves.

What about Cymbal Manufacturer polish?

Of course, if you want to forego all this, you can simply use the polish recommended by your manufacturer. I should note that generally these manufacturers do not recommend using any household products instead promoting their own polish. This really isn't surprising as obviously they'll want you to use their own stuff to make more money but if you want to be better safe than sorry just shill out the $10 for a proper cymbal cleaner.

As someone who uses mostly Wuhan cymbals however, there is no Wuhan specific polish so the household cleaners are often just what I need at any given time. And always remember there are always other options for cymbal cleaning out there.

Speaking of which:

Cymbal Cleaning Services

You may not know that services like this even exist, but they're certainly out there. Go ahead, just google 'cymbal cleaning services' and see what pops up. This is another viable option especially if you don't trust your own hands to do the job and would rather a professional take care of it. To do this they use a cymbal restoration machine (yes that's what they call it) to clean all the grime and dirt out of the cymbal and even professionally restore the logo if needed.

The only downside to this there are not a ton of locations where you can do this, but some allow for you to ship your cymbals to the shop and you just pay extra for shipping. The cost for these services varies anywhere from 15$-40$ American per cymbal.

Conclusion

While there many options out there to clean your cymbals, some options are better than others. If you want to stick with the manufacturer recommended cymbal cleaner, you will have nothing but good results. But if you want to use household cleaners, most of them will get the job done perfectly fine. I would just advise against using some of these methods regularly as they will very slowly erode the metals. Just use these somewhat sparingly and you should be fine.