Fowldarr's rust clean-up thread

[fowldarr]

A proper search for vintage tools is a rusty and dirty affair. In an effort to give back to all the knowledge gained on this forum I thought I would chronicle my efforts to degrease, derust (is that even a word?), and just generally clean up my small but growing collection using a variety of methods, most of which can be found in various threads right here in GJ.

This will simply record my experience using the different methods and what I find works best. If anyone has pointers, criticism, or ideas along the way, feel free to share.

First up: Vinegar Soak


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[fowldarr]

The vinegar soak was found to be effective. I failed in getting proper before photos, but I have some pics from before I scrubbed them. I used cheap and disposable western family brand Tupperware style containers and store bought vinegar. Total cost of supplies was under $10.

Here is a picture with a cleaned (post scrubbing) vs. fresh out of the vinegar soak

Here is the same wrench before and after scrubbing. You can see a clear difference

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[fowldarr]

A few more pictures

Close up before and after.

And a big pile of cleaned up tools.

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[fowldarr]

Overall, soaking in vinegar was cheap and mostly effective. There were other discolorations that remained even after scrubbing. And there was quite a bit of scrubbing involved (for scrubbing I used a green scrub pad)

Next up: Evaporust


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[drivesitfar]

Fowl: i love your spirit and thought i'd add one of my favorite threads the Homemade electrolysis thread the members of GJ made a couple years ago. there is a lot of good information in this thread and a member (Torqueman2002) just posted a video (45 minute video) that shows a lot of the methods you are trying or going to try to maybe help you and others out too. the 45 minute YouTube video is on post #625.

http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=237752&highlight=homemade+electrolysis

good luck and thanks for taking the time to post up what is a passion for you and a lot of us.

cheers

 

[fowldarr]

That thread was a bit of an inspiration for me as I started this one. Electrolysis is on my list, just watching for a cheap battery charger, and waiting for some friends to clean some stuff out of my garage so I have some more room.


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[sparklemotion]

There must be something in the air.

I started researching this topic a couple of weeks ago, and stumbled on tubalcain's set of rust removal videos. I had just gotten through them when he started posting his Olympics of Rust Removal, which involved a semi-scientific comparison across of a bunch of different methods.

Here's The Olympics: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. It's worth watching all of them, to be honest, but if you really just want to see results, you're best off just skipping to about 4 minutes into part 3 and then fast forwarding as needed from there.

The playlist of all of his rust removal vids (since I assume he's going to get hit with a trademark takedown for the "Olympics") is here.

For me, I think I'm going to stick with vinegar for small, non-precious things, evaporust for small precious things, since I am lazy, cheap, and forgetful.

But for big things (like the Prentiss 518 that is waiting for some love right now), I might as well go through the whole electrolysis rigmarole if I have to be dedicating a big old tote (or 2) to the project anyways.

 

[covert]

What are the general thoughts of using Naval Jelly for these tasks?

 

[sparklemotion]

What are the general thoughts of using Naval Jelly for these tasks?

I wasn't super impressed with my experience with Naval Jelly, but that might be because I was paranoid and being pretty strict in my adherence to the instructions, which said not to leave on for more than 15 minutes.

(I just looked for the pictures of the piece I was working on, and apparently I only took a Before pic, and neglected to take an After-Navel-Jelly-Before-Evaporust one, bah.)

Based on tubalcain's results, I do think the Naval Jelly would have done a better job if given longer to work, and I like the goopiness (which is good for large pieces). Multiple applications would probably help too, but who wants to play babysitter?

So, Naval Jelly will work, but if you're at a store and have the choice of either or, I'd go with Evaporust first. It just seems like a better product to me.

 

[covert]

I wasn't super impressed with my experience with Naval Jelly, but that might be because I was paranoid and being pretty strict in my adherence to the instructions, which said not to leave on for more than 15 minutes.

(I just looked for the pictures of the piece I was working on, and apparently I only took a Before pic, and neglected to take an After-Navel-Jelly-Before-Evaporust one, bah.)

Based on tubalcain's results, I do think the Naval Jelly would have done a better job if given longer to work, and I like the goopiness (which is good for large pieces). Multiple applications would probably help too, but who wants to play babysitter?

So, Naval Jelly will work, but if you're at a store and have the choice of either or, I'd go with Evaporust first. It just seems like a better product to me.

Thanks. I was thinking the same thing.

 

[tym]

Thanks for doing this. Like you, I was pleasantly surprised at how effective the vinegar soak was.

 

[fowldarr]

I had another batch in vinegar. Honestly, I forgot about these ones and they sat in vinegar for TWO WEEKS. Yikes.

Here they are. All cleaned up.

No ill effects from the long vinegar bath on the quality tools (as far as I can tell). The cheap chromed ones experienced some flaking where they were previously damaged.


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[6PTsocket]

I had another batch in vinegar. Honestly, I forgot about these ones and they sat in vinegar for TWO WEEKS. Yikes.

Here they are. All cleaned up.

No ill effects from the long vinegar bath on the quality tools (as far as I can tell). The cheap chromed ones experienced some flaking where they were previously damaged.


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Many weak acids will work, even the phosohoric acid in a Coke. Vinegar is usually 5% acetic acid. Given enough time it will etch good metal but as long as you keep an eye on the process it is not usually a problem. Oaxolic acid (wood bleach) is weak Hydrocloric acid and some people use that.

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[fowldarr]

Playing with evaporust. I don't have good before picture but I'm impressed with the result.

They came out of this drawer of sockets. And we're very rusty.

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