I had the same thing on a pair of 404 hi hats. Basically the corrosion is under the protective clear coat, the only way to remove it is to remove the clear coat to get at the corrosion. I made a thick paste of Barkeepers Friend, painted it on the cymbal and repeatedly scrubbed it with a small nail brush then rinsed off - I only cleaned the playing surface of the top hat as the clear coat was in pretty bad condition, the underside and bottom hat weren't as bad. It took me several attempts to completely remove the lacquer (it also removed the corrosion - and the logos!).
It also left lots of light scratching on the surface of the cymbal, but I removed this by polishing with brasso - it took me over an hour to clean one surface of the top hat..
One of the members of this forum cleaned some cymbals with wheel cleaner and a buffing attachment in a high speed drill with good results, this is probably a better idea unless you have several hours to kill and enjoy monotonous work.
Personally I wouldn't bother doing this unless the clear coat is in really bad condition - my 404 top hat was really bad and the clear coat had turned brown - if it was just a couple of small black spots I wouldn't have bothered.
Bookmarks