restoring a painted crew oar

My father was the captain of his boarding school crew in 1935, and was given his oar, the blade of which was painted blue with white lettering to commemorate his teammates and their winning time at Henley. I now have this oar. Unfortunately my mom kept it in a covered but not climate controlled shed for many years. Does anyone have any ideas as to how to take the grime etc off this and restore it? The main part of the oar should be easy as it just needs cleaning and re-varnishing, but the painted blade scares me a bit....instead of having someone photograph and then replicate it, the fact that it LOOKS old with some paint chipped off a few names makes it look pretty cool (and old). I just want to carefully clean it up leaving (and hopefully brightening) the original paint. Any ideas would be most appreciated. Thanks!

 

Wash it with a mild soap, like dishwashing liquid and dry it off. You'll probably make it considerably better looking with just this step.

If you want to get further into cleaning it, try some 409 or other concentrated cleaner and a sponge and see what happens. If you use abrasives like Comet the you'll start scratching the paint, so I'd avoid them, ditto bleach and other caustic cleaners. The paint is likely oil based, which isn't particularly tough, but better then the acrylics (latex) we use now. A little patina wouldn't be a bad thing if it was clean, just showing signs of use.

 

thanks Paul. I see you are a most august member of this site and I appreciate your input

 

I don't know a about "august" so much. I'm a June and July kind of guy actually . . .