I've been using Brasso but it's a major pain in the butt. Anyone have an easier way to clean the gold cups?

If you are obsessed on keeping your brass cups shiny, then you need to go to a place like Bed, Bath and Beyond or Linens and Things and purchase every brass cleaner they have. Play around with them until you find the one that you like. ALL of them are a major pain in the butt. Some are worse than others, though, because they leave a greasy residue that will make the cups slippery.

I polish with brasso on certain sets of my cups. I can polish a set of Johnson cups in about 5 minutes by hand. There's a system to it. You need the following:
1) Brasso
2) a soft, "wooly rag" or a microfiber cloth, such as the ones you get at Sam's or Wal-Mart in packages of a dozen.

Put a spot of brasso on the wooly rag, and spread it all over the cup. Wrap the clean area of the wooly rag around the cup. Grip the rag and the cup in your right hand and apply pressure, and using the left hand, twist the cup inside the rag until the cup shines. Then polish the bottom recess of the cup.

Repeat on the other two cups.

Nothing else is faster.

Some people lacquer the cups after polishing them. You can do that if you want to, but when the lacquer chips away, the cup will begin to tarnish in those places, and pretty soon, you will have a very "motley" looking cup.

Krylon used to make a clear epoxy spray that was quite tough. It will last longer, but in the end, you will have to remove it sometime to repolish the cups.

Do you mean the Johnson Brass Cups? You see, Gold (atomic number 79) is the LEAST reactant element, which means it will never rust, tarnish, or whathaveyou. Brass however, loves to tarnish. Try ketchup (I know the thought of smearing your fancy cups w/ ketchup is horrifying, but ketchup is a great cheap brass cleaner)

Yep. It's really disappointing when you find out that your gold cups aren't gold.

And if you do get hold of some REAL gold cups -- keep them away from Aqua Regia. That will dissolve gold.

I use NeverDull polish...it is sold in any hardware store, and supposedly is gentler on the brass than Brasso. Seems to work.

Brasso will remove metal and should not be used on effects with close tolerances as for cups they are solid metal and can tolerate some material removal.

I prefer SemiChrome, it does not remove material and it is a quick process.

Thanks for all the advice everyone. After I posted this I saw another lengthy thread here on this topic. Sorry for making everyone repeat themselves. And yes, the Gold cups are actaully brass. Now there's some false advertising for ya. (sorry, that was the lawyer in me coming out, and yes I knew they were brass when I ordered them).

Actually Simichrome does remove material. It also leaves a waxy residue. The only brass cleaner that does not remove any metal at all is Nevr Dull. This is the one that George Robinson has personally tested and approved for use on all Viking brass products, including the rattle bars. If you use Simichrome on the rattle bars, within a year the gimmick will not fit properly. Nevr Dull does not have that problem.

However, Nevrdull is very messy. And the amount of metal removed by Brasso is negligible, unless you use a hard paper towel to apply it and polish with it. I prefer to use the soft wooly rags or a microfiber cloth. They do less damage than anything else.

BTW, Simichrome is the same as about 2/3 of all the other Brass polishes in a tube. It is also sold as Hagerty's.