It has a shaft that goes into a pedestal where there are two bearings so the sculpture can spin. While that pedestal is at the powder coater, Kevin is polishing the knot – a lot!
Bare copper with no preservative will oxidize quickly, even in the desert. So Kevin goes old school again. He first encountered this process when he was growing up in Connecticut. Being a little kid, he got to polish the brass on his family’s boat.
One of the products he used was Nevr-Dull. Kevin opens the can to show that it is filled with some sort of wool soaked in a chemical. It also preserves and helps seal the metal to keep it from oxidizing.
Kevin has used this product a lot, including using it in the military to shine his buttons and belt buckle. It works great!
There’s no need for a clear coat over the Nevr-Dull. It’ll last 6 – 8 months, maybe a year, in the desert. If you’re near the shore, you might need to polish it more frequently. Kevin likes the look of the raw copper, and this allows it to stay that way. You’re also able to touch the knot to spin it – the chemical keeps your body oils from soiling the metal or leaving prints.
Does it really make a difference? Moonshine is already pretty shiny, so Kevin takes a piece of copper he hasn’t yet worked on and rubs it with Nevr-Dull. Within a minute, it looks much shinier.
Where do you get it? There aren’t many boatyards in Arizona, so Kevin bought it at an auto part store. You can also get it online.
Meanwhile, Kevin tells viewers they can find him on Facebook by searching for “Kevin Caron, Artist” and be sure to subscribe to his YouTube channel to see more videos – he adds a new one every week.
Or you can stick around for another moment and see what Kevin was laughing about at the beginning of the video ….