Believe it or not, I've been doing this long enough that:
- A) I've now worn my way almost all the way through a web belt, and;
B) I got my belt back when we used to think Indy's Raiders buckle was silver. (Look, I'm as surprised as you are that VHS screen caps weren't totally accurate.)
So, although I had a beautiful old silver coloured belt buckle (with a lovely patina), I decided it was time to get a brass one and a fresh web belt that won't come apart if I gain a few pounds (of muscle, naturally). I found a brand new one for about $5 at a military surplus store, but it was in desperate need of distressing.
So here is the story of how I went from this:
To this:
I did a search of CoW for tips on how to distress brass from those who have come before. Based on that research, these are the steps I took.
- Step 1) First I identified whether I had a solid brass buckle, or merely a brass plated buckle. Unfortunately it was the latter, inferior style I had.
Step 2) Using a Dremel with a fine grit attachment, I did some work on carefully removing the shiniest layer of plating, as well as adding some scratches to the edges of the thing.
Step 3) I wasn't quite happy with just the Dremeling, so I got a coarse nail file and got rough with it. I put a couple of good scrapes on there to simulate truck dragging damage.
Step 4) From there I tried solutions of salt water, and of vinegar (separately) to see if that would speed up the patina process. Limited success.
Step 5) Going back to the research, I found that ammonia was apparently the key. So I put the buckle in some Windex for a couple of hours.
Step 6) THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT STEP! While waiting for the ammonia to do its business, I decided to tidy up an old wardrobe full of costume pieces in the attic. While doing that, I found a perfect, solid brass buckle attached to a decaying tan coloured web belt. This is the buckle in the "after" picture up above. I had probably hidden it away back when I thought this was only accurate to Temple/Last Crusade.
Joking aside, I was pretty happy with the results on my plated buckle, although the old solid brass one is definitely what I'll be wearing going forward.
Here's a couple of pictures of the two side by side for comparison.
The old on is on top there, with my distressing work on the bottom.
Again, old one on top. Reading "Solid Brass" is very satisfying to me.
All this to say, I think it's kind of cool what being a bit of a packrat will bring you. I'm excited about my "new" old belt, but less excited to realise that I'm more like Marcus than Indy, since this is basically "getting lost in my own museum".
If anyone wants to see a couple more pictures of the belts, or just some hi-res versions, there's an album here: http://imgur.com/a/hIsjx