A while back, one of my brass zills disappeared, leaving me to play my big, beautiful silver zills. And while they are in fact big and beautiful, they are also loud, and thus not exactly the best to play in classes or in my living room, for that matter. Thankfully I finally found the fourth brass one, but these babies were in need of some TLC! The brass was so tarnished it was developing crusty verdigris spots, the elastic was shot, and the safety pins were rusty. It was time for a zill makeover!
Of course, I had this thought in the middle of the night, and I wanted it done NOW. I didn’t want to go out and buy brass polish, or ingredients to make my own. I had to find a method to clean them with something that was already in my house. Shira.net to the rescue! On her Introduction to Zills page, she has a recipe for a cleaner made out of white vinegar, salt, and flour. All things that I had plenty of in my kitchen!
It was really easy to make, I just dissolved the salt in the vinegar and added flour by the tablespoonful until I had a good pastey consistency. I think it was around 7 tablespoons? I forgot to count. This made a generous amount of paste and I only had one set of zills to clean, so I put them in a little plastic container and poured the paste on top, making sure they were well-covered.
Even that only took about half of the paste, so next time I’ll probably halve the recipe. You could easily polish a whole mess of finger cymbals or other brass items with this! Anyway, I left them sit for about 15-20 minutes while I did some practice with my other zills.
Next I dumped out the excess paste, gave them a little rinse with warm water to remove the residue, and dried them off with a kitchen towel. The verdigris was gone, but the zills still had a soft, warm patina, which is the look I prefer for my brass ones, as I think it looks more tribal. If I wanted to get them to look shiny and new, I would have to follow this treatment up with some actual brass polish. However, as a way to clean them up to an attractive patina as opposed to a gross one, this worked really well and was quick, easy and cheap.
All that was left to do was put in some new elastic with new safety pins, and I was good to go!
Note: Yes, I safety pin my zills for home practice. I know it looks tacky, and isn’t the best solution, but elastic wears out really quickly in the desert, and sewing elastic is one of my least-favorite belly dance chores. As such, I tend to safety pin them first, wait a couple weeks for the elastic to get broken in and comfortable, and then stitch them at the perfect spot to be a snug fit. And of course, any time I’m going on stage with them, I make sure they’re sewn! But at home, safety pins it is!