For hardware that is really greasy I use wax remover (paint prep) in a wide mouthed Gatorade bottle. Shake, soak, repeat. Then after drying I toss them into a Harbor Freight 15lb tumbler with their walnut shell media. Let a batch run for 24hrs and they come out all clean and satin finished. Sift in a colander (not your wife’s nice one) and blow clean with compressed air.
For a factory fresh finish, i media blasted the bolt/screw heads as walnut shell media/gunk gets trapped in there. Any imperfections will be magnified after plating.
The only local place to me that does small batches will dip clean and de-rust before plating but it didn’t remove everything.
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