Advice on vintage exterior camera cleaning

[John Young]

I have a few old cameras and I have just been given a couple more from my father-in-law and wanted to know how to clean the silver areas on these cameras (below - sorry for naff photo- from phone)

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

You have a problem Italian cameras of that era were made of low grade polished aluminium. Which oxidises very readily. this literally eats away the surface.
The best you can hope to achieve is to clean it with a metal polish like Autosol which will cut the oxidised surface. The down side is will remove what is left of the anodised surface and any engraving too. so it is in itself destructive. So in reality there is not much you can do to improve their looks long term.

You can console yourself with the fact they were probably moulded from the remains of destroyed aircraft.

 

[Paddysnapper]

I have used glasses cleaning wipes, it manages to take any grotty deposits off without causing damage.

 

[John Young]

Thank you both for the advice - I will take a look at those glass cleaning wipes