If you have polished your brass,you will find that metal lacquer will peel off like Saran wrap unless you have THOROUGHLY cleaned the brass with Stoddard solvent( refined mineral spirits used by dry cleaners),or some other non oily solvent.
It is surprising how much black crud will come out of a polished surface of brass when you wash the solvent over it. Just keeps oozing out for some time.
When you get the black crud to stop oozing out,and wipe the solvent off,and give a few days for everything to get dry,you may apply the lacquer,and it won't peel off.
We used this procedure in lacquering the Brinkley surveyor's compass I have posted here. It was coated with a golden tinted clear coat of lacquer. Brass trumpets are also coated with a transparent gold tinted metal lacquer.