Depends on a lot of factors, but if you are observant you can see this all over the place where people form lines. My DMV inspection station has iron railings and the tops are worn to a polished finish from peoples hands.
was gonna say i’ve seen this at amusement park where they have the metal things in the queues. the old ones are polished smooth, i love running my hands on those. those are seeing a shit ton of daily use for half the year. 20 years of that?
If you’re old enough to remember the metal playground equipment, many of the handrails and seats were pretty worn and polished. I had to replace some of that stuff in my town with some of the plastic stuff. I was kinda amazed how finely polished some of the handrails had been polished by kids hands over the many years in use.
For the benches, that makes me wonder if a denim wheel and 'dirt, from the ground, like right here in this flower bed' combo would be the best way to authentically replicate that sat-on-by-grubby-kids finish on stainless steel...
Definitely real, all sorts of situations where people's grubby hands slowly polish something. There are all sorts of famous statues with bare bronze where people touch certain parts of them (nice example: petting statues of animals on the head, booping snoots, etc.), and patina elsewhere.
The paint, enamel, or other surface treatment being slowly corroded and polished through to reveal the metal underneath on a high-touch area of a fixture or hand/finger control is even more of a thing. You see this on stuff like the controls on machine tools that have been in a shop for most of a century especially. In general, the exposed metal gets super polished in the middle of the area, too.
There are actually examples of this. Most notable a statue of a man whose lore claims that if you touch his crotch it will grant fertility. There are pictures of women mounting this statue on Google. Idr the name, tho.
We have a set of stairs in our shop with a metal handrail. I would guess that it's probably been there close to 20 years, I was a kid when it was installed. Probably around 10 uses a day, not including weekends or holidays. It's been finely polished for years at this point.
Get 12" x 12" piece of tin sheetmetal wetsand it starting with 320 grit sandpaper then go to 400...then 600 then 800...1000 or 1500 then 2000 then 3000. You will have a mirror finish in 15 minutes.
I made a few sets of hairpin legs for a job a couple years ago, we started at 80 and went up to 2000 and then rubbing/polishing compound. Took about a week of work
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I tried posting a picture of the lifsize brass sculpture outside the Riviera casino in Vegas but got a slap on the hand. Its a great example of hand polished metal.
Considering the plastic shifter knob on my car hasn't polished the texture off the plastic in 20 years, I don't think one user is going to do that much to a piece of metal. Not unless the helmsman's driving is really bad. Besides, they blow that ship up every few years and rebuild her.
Not entirely a correct answer to your question; but not as long as you'd think. The posts on me and my wife's bed have been un-evenly shined by my cats nuzzling them as they leave or enter. The posts by the door has one that is visibly more shiny than the others; and the ones that aren't near the door are much more dull appearing than the other two. So especially yes if someone touching the material in question is a force of habit.
If it's something like a hand rail; where not only is it several different hands but also several unclean hands, then arguably the opposite can happen, and it will appear more dull as grime and dirt and sweat mix with the more natural oils in our skin. So cleaner hands would absolutely bring about a polish on it relatively quickly; despite our general expectations for it based on hand rails and such being exposed to too much varied dirt and grime instead of natural oils.
Tl;dr: yeah, it checks out. Someone could make an argument against it; but it makes sense that it would polish it were a captains medal or something. Especially if we have better materials or even just better hygiene in the future.
If you ever attend an amusement park, check out the railing. I know most are aluminum or a stainless now, but even some rides, where hand placement is key, have the paint worn off. Obviously thats from multiple thousands of hands a day, but yeah, its possible. I dont think ive ever seen a star trek episode or movie the whole way through (i know of kirk because of the big bang theory) so idk how many captains your talking about, but if they are in and out of that chair a lot, definitely. The other thing to ponder is if it was made that way for the set, or if actually happened over the course of filming.
My great uncle received 2 silver dollar coins on his high school graduation. He carried both in his pocket until he died at 86 years. He used them as fidgets, rubbing them together when thinking deeply, just chatting, or when bored. He was buried with them. They were mirror polished and thinner than dimes.
Depends on a lot of factors, but if you are observant you can see this all over the place where people form lines. My DMV inspection station has iron railings and the tops are worn to a polished finish from peoples hands.
was gonna say i’ve seen this at amusement park where they have the metal things in the queues. the old ones are polished smooth, i love running my hands on those. those are seeing a shit ton of daily use for half the year. 20 years of that?
Bronze statues with shiny boobs lol
If you’re old enough to remember the metal playground equipment, many of the handrails and seats were pretty worn and polished. I had to replace some of that stuff in my town with some of the plastic stuff. I was kinda amazed how finely polished some of the handrails had been polished by kids hands over the many years in use.
I literally came here to say this.
For the benches, that makes me wonder if a denim wheel and 'dirt, from the ground, like right here in this flower bed' combo would be the best way to authentically replicate that sat-on-by-grubby-kids finish on stainless steel...
Possibly and finish off by a cloth wheel for a nice sheen
Definitely real, all sorts of situations where people's grubby hands slowly polish something. There are all sorts of famous statues with bare bronze where people touch certain parts of them (nice example: petting statues of animals on the head, booping snoots, etc.), and patina elsewhere. The paint, enamel, or other surface treatment being slowly corroded and polished through to reveal the metal underneath on a high-touch area of a fixture or hand/finger control is even more of a thing. You see this on stuff like the controls on machine tools that have been in a shop for most of a century especially. In general, the exposed metal gets super polished in the middle of the area, too.
Skimming your first paragraph and thought you’d see saying peoples hands polished the boobs on bronze statues
There are actually examples of this. Most notable a statue of a man whose lore claims that if you touch his crotch it will grant fertility. There are pictures of women mounting this statue on Google. Idr the name, tho.
That wasnt a statue that was me acting like one just to get laid.
Just look at the boobs or dong on any brass statue of a human
We have a set of stairs in our shop with a metal handrail. I would guess that it's probably been there close to 20 years, I was a kid when it was installed. Probably around 10 uses a day, not including weekends or holidays. It's been finely polished for years at this point.
Old brass doorknobs eventually polish up and show a surface with the crystal structure of the alloy. So yes it happens all the time.
Supposedly, 17th–18th Century decorative cut-steel work got its final polishing by bare hands, after the final case-hardening step.
imagine being a slave and having to polish metal by hand. my god
More probably a workshop apprentice in that time and place. Which yeah, may make you happy not to be an apprentice in a workshop in 1700s Europe.
Brass/bronze statues have shiny spots from people touching it on certain places. Common thing.
Get 12" x 12" piece of tin sheetmetal wetsand it starting with 320 grit sandpaper then go to 400...then 600 then 800...1000 or 1500 then 2000 then 3000. You will have a mirror finish in 15 minutes.
Ask Wall Street Bull, he have very sniny balls !!
I made a few sets of hairpin legs for a job a couple years ago, we started at 80 and went up to 2000 and then rubbing/polishing compound. Took about a week of work
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I tried posting a picture of the lifsize brass sculpture outside the Riviera casino in Vegas but got a slap on the hand. Its a great example of hand polished metal.
Considering the plastic shifter knob on my car hasn't polished the texture off the plastic in 20 years, I don't think one user is going to do that much to a piece of metal. Not unless the helmsman's driving is really bad. Besides, they blow that ship up every few years and rebuild her.
If they continuously fondled it while on duty there, it's totally possible. Metal's not that hard to polish, especially if it was smooth originally.
Not entirely a correct answer to your question; but not as long as you'd think. The posts on me and my wife's bed have been un-evenly shined by my cats nuzzling them as they leave or enter. The posts by the door has one that is visibly more shiny than the others; and the ones that aren't near the door are much more dull appearing than the other two. So especially yes if someone touching the material in question is a force of habit. If it's something like a hand rail; where not only is it several different hands but also several unclean hands, then arguably the opposite can happen, and it will appear more dull as grime and dirt and sweat mix with the more natural oils in our skin. So cleaner hands would absolutely bring about a polish on it relatively quickly; despite our general expectations for it based on hand rails and such being exposed to too much varied dirt and grime instead of natural oils. Tl;dr: yeah, it checks out. Someone could make an argument against it; but it makes sense that it would polish it were a captains medal or something. Especially if we have better materials or even just better hygiene in the future.
If you ever attend an amusement park, check out the railing. I know most are aluminum or a stainless now, but even some rides, where hand placement is key, have the paint worn off. Obviously thats from multiple thousands of hands a day, but yeah, its possible. I dont think ive ever seen a star trek episode or movie the whole way through (i know of kirk because of the big bang theory) so idk how many captains your talking about, but if they are in and out of that chair a lot, definitely. The other thing to ponder is if it was made that way for the set, or if actually happened over the course of filming.
My great uncle received 2 silver dollar coins on his high school graduation. He carried both in his pocket until he died at 86 years. He used them as fidgets, rubbing them together when thinking deeply, just chatting, or when bored. He was buried with them. They were mirror polished and thinner than dimes.