Care
Bronze care and storage for importers and distributors
How to dust, wash, wax and store bronze altar sets in a warehouse or a shop, which finishes must never meet polish, and when a mark is a real defect.
Bronze does not rust through or rot in a warehouse. It darkens, and it darkens unevenly — fast on the high points hands touch, slow in the recesses. Nearly all of that is reversible with a dry cloth and ten minutes, provided nobody has already attacked it with an abrasive or a supermarket metal polish. This guide covers what to do with stock on your shelves, what to hand the retail customer, and where tarnish ends and a defect begins.
Why the colour moves between our bench and your shelf
Copper alloys react with moisture, with sulphur compounds in ordinary air, and with the salt and oil left by bare hands. Inside a steel container the air swings from a cool night to a hot afternoon and condenses on the coldest thing in the box, usually the heaviest casting. Shop lighting adds a second variable: heat and UV dull a sealed surface, so the piece in your window ages faster than the same piece in its crate.
None of this is structural. Our work is solid-cast, not plated sheet — 5 mm of wall as standard, up to 8 mm where the piece carries load, such as the burner’s legs and ears or a crane’s ankle. A tarnished surface has lost no metal worth measuring, and can be cleaned and re-waxed many times over its life.
Match the care to the finish, not to the metal
The finishes listed on our finishes page fall into three care groups. Treating one group like another is the single fastest way to ruin stock.
- Sealed surfaces. Dry microfibre cloth. For marks, warm water with one drop of mild detergent, then dry immediately. Never metal polish: it cuts the seal and leaves a cloudy patch only re-finishing will remove.
- Open waxed patina. Dry dusting, plus a thin coat of microcrystalline wax once or twice a year. Polish is what strips patina, so keep this group away from enthusiastic staff.
- Gilded and inlaid detail. Gold leaf, enamel and inlaid wire get a soft dry brush and nothing wet. Clean around them, not over them.
Test any new product on the underside of a base first. That habit costs nothing and has saved more stock than anything sold in a bottle.
A warehouse routine staff will actually follow
This is the routine we give buyers who hold stock for months before it sells. Times are per piece on a size 65 set.
| Task | How often | Budget per piece | What it prevents |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dry dust, display stock | Weekly | 2–3 min | Patchy build-up on high points |
| Handle with cotton gloves | Every handling | — | Fingerprint salts etching the surface |
| Warm water and mild soap, dried at once | Quarterly, display stock only | 8–10 min | Dust bonding into a film |
| Microcrystalline wax, open patina only | Every 6–12 months | 12–15 min | Bare metal reacting in humid months |
| Open a crate, inspect, reseal | On arrival, then every 6 months | 5 min | Damp held against metal by wet packing |
Handling numbers worth pinning on the wall
A complete size 65 five-piece set runs to roughly 36 kg, most of it in the burner. Dimensions and weights by size sit on the specifications page; the proportions below are what staff need in their heads when unpacking.
| Piece | Relation to the burner | Handling note |
|---|---|---|
| Burner | Reference piece of the set | Heaviest single item; two people, lift under the body |
| Cranes, pair | 5–7 cm taller | Carry by the body, never the beak or a leg |
| Candlesticks, pair | 12–15 cm shorter | Top-heavy on a narrow foot; do not slide across a shelf |
| Incense bowl | About one third of the height | Wide rim marks easily; store rim-up, never inverted |
Store sets upright rather than stacked, off a concrete floor, with the crate liners in place until a piece goes on display.
What to put in the box for the end customer
Retailers sell more confidently when care instructions travel with the piece. These six lines fit on a card and hold for every finish we ship:
- Dust with a dry, soft cloth. Nothing abrasive, ever.
- If it needs washing, use warm water with a drop of mild soap, then dry at once.
- No metal polish, lemon, vinegar or bathroom cleaner on a finished surface.
- Keep gold leaf and inlay dry. Brush them; do not wipe them.
- Darkening with age is normal for bronze, not damage.
- Handle with clean dry hands, or a cloth, especially in the first weeks.
Tarnish is not a defect. These are.
Hand casting moves, and we say so before an order rather than after it. Between two pieces of the same model, 1–3 cm of difference in height is normal; above 5 cm we treat it as a fault. Colour variation within a finish is normal too, because patina is applied by hand rather than sprayed.
What is not normal variation: porosity through a wall, a crack, a base that rocks, a crane that will not sit square on its plinth, a finish lifting in sheets. Photograph the piece next to its carton marking and use the claims route on our quality control page, which sets out the inspection stages and the claims window.
Send a photograph before anyone re-finishes anything. A surface that looks ruined in a shop is usually ten minutes of work, and the wrong home remedy is what turns it into a re-cast — and a replacement is a casting job of 21–30 days, not a shelf pick.
Frequently asked questions
Can we use a supermarket metal polish on your pieces?
No. On a sealed surface it leaves a permanent cloudy patch; on an open patina it strips colour our finishers built by hand. Dry cloth first, mild soapy water second, wax third.
Does tarnish mean the piece is not solid bronze?
The opposite. Solid copper alloy reacts with air. Pieces that never change colour are usually plated or coated steel. At 5 mm of wall, up to 8 mm at load points, surface change never approaches anything structural.
How should we store unsold stock for a year?
Upright, off the floor, in the original packing, in stable humidity and out of direct sun. Open the crates on arrival and again at six months, check for damp packing, re-wax open patina once in that year.
Can you ship pieces already waxed so they go straight to the retailer?
Tell us on the enquiry which finish and preparation you want and we will confirm what is possible for that run before you order. We would rather say no in advance than send something that fails in your warehouse.
Two pieces of the same model arrived in slightly different tones. Is that a defect?
Not on its own. Hand-applied patina varies, as do heights by 1–3 cm between castings of the same model. If the difference reads across a metre of shelf, photograph both in daylight and send it; we will say honestly which side of the line it sits on.
Planning a first order, or holding stock that needs a second opinion? Send photographs and your model list through the request a quote form, or message the workshop on WhatsApp or Zalo at +84 926 199 999. Buyers who visit can compare the same finishes, aged differently, at our showrooms in Nam Dinh, Hanoi and Hai Phong.