with each treatment the brass seemed to get more dull and ended up being a kind of gunmetal gray. I can't seem to get the brass color back
Sandra, it may be that the brass wire you used was only
brass-plated, in which case you’ll probably not get the brass color
back, depending on what metal(s) it was plated over. (I once had some
brass jumprings which were brass underneath, over which a layer of
some grey metal had been put, and then another [thin] layer of brass
had been plated over that. I had to use nitric acid to get that grey
layer off – it was a real hassle, and not worth it.)
All the best,
Judy Bjorkman