Skip to main content

Rust Removal: Death by Scraping

Everyone has their favourite methods. I tried some that was published.

Citric acid, Vinegar:
 Good for small rusted items like screws and bolts. An overnight soak leaves even the fine screw threads clean. Will re-rust rapidly if not flushed with tap water, dried and oild/waxed.

Coke (the drink) and Aluminium foil:
Most useful for folks with limited cleaning arsenal, works well on lightly spotted or tarnished chrome bumpers or bicycle frames. (Now you know why there's an ant farm under my Bailey No. 5's chrome lever cap)

Sandpaper:
Works on most metals, but removes patina and leaves scratches. Sanding in just one direction (lengthwise) helps the aesthetics greatly, as in sanding a hand saw blade.

Electrolysis:
Works like magic, all rust gone, no trace of any cleaning... or is there? Look closely, and you will see patches of discoloration (ok, I'm being very picky here), and the bare, rust free steel surface has a matted look. If you soak an item that has many captive nuts, nooks, crannies, tapped holes , you may find it challenging to scrub the black crud off after you take the item out of the dip tank. Or when the item comes with a wooden/horn/ivory etc  part attached that cannot be removed, electrolysis may not be the best solution.

So here I include scraping as another method. I first came across the method on Pete Taran's excellent Vintage saw website.(Vintage Saw site) and after trying, I have to agree that scraping is faster and should preceed sanding (if you must really sand).


First Pass. Use a low angle, slicing cut.

2ND pass, some base metal exposed.


Some elbow grease with metal polish (Read: Fine abrasives suspended in a base creme)

Look ma, no scratches.
I'm using a double edge razor because I'm too cheap. With care and a light touch, you will hardly nick yourself or the iron. This is a long, tedious process, and if you figure in the minimum wage with the time it took to do a square inch, it may well be the most expensive method. The only advantage is that it can be done dry.(No liquids here)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

SHARPENING WITH ARKANSAS STONES

What on earth are they? A user made box of assorted Arkansas stones. They are America's answer to: The Wales' Welsh Slate (Dragon's Tongue); The Scotch Tam O'Shanter; The English Charnley Forest stone; The Japanese Tenin Toishi; The German Thuringian Hone; The Chinese Guangzhou River bedrock; The Belgian Coticule; You get the idea. Local rocks that you use to sharpen mama's kitchen knives.   A collection of smaller pocket-sized Arkansas stones  In this entry, I will not try to tell you what you probably already know. What is the point of describing that oily rock you already have under your bench, in your drawer, in a can of kerosene? Note also, that the sharpening I describe here is best applied to woodworking in general. I am an amateur handtool woodworker. Sharpening a straight razor would be entirely another branch of science. I do not profess to know all there is to know about sharpening or Arkansas stones; I simply failed ...
31 comments
Read more

The prolific & seemingly mundane Stanley 110 block plane..

R eally?   Well, it's everywhere, check Granpa or uncle Tim's shack ( if you include copies of it by lesser tool makers) For something so abundant (well, Stanley sold them by truckloads), so common and so relatively inexpensive, I will attempt to wax some lyrical on them. By "them" I mean their design, their construction. The plane pictured above was purchased off ebay for $4.90. It looked like Joe Meatball (to borrow Patrick Leach's character) bought it, used it on some hardwood (pre silicon valley micro chipping at the edge)without first fettling the plane(unsharpened factory bevel), and put it away (in some dry place), and totally forgot about it. First off, at Five Bucks, how can you go wrong? Five bucks don't buy you a door wedge these days.   STANLEY'S SUPERIOR ADJUSTABLE HEIGHT DOOR WEDGE, TYPE 16.  1) The lever cap also serves as an ergonomic palm-rest to push the plane forward, and the oval shaped  cut-out serves as a hanging h...
20 comments
Read more

10 Things I learnt about Arkansas Stones

10 things I learned about Arkansas stones Stones should be kept in their own box, or in a segregated box. This keeps out saw dust, and protects from stones knocking on each other, causing chips. 1)  Not for sharpening tools: Not a typing error too. I'm sure everyone has a dull knife or two in the kitchen. The type that will not cut meat or slice bread. You may be able to push-cut an apple, but that's all it'll do. Or that vintage ebay Marples chisel or that plane iron off a vintage Bailey. The edges on these tools will need to be dressed (chips ground-out, skew-edge squared, rolled-edge removed) and re-profiled (irregular and multiple bevel angles corrected) on a bench grinder or a coarse diamond plate, carborundum stones etc. All the above before it even touches an Arkansas stone. I have never met an Arkansas stone that can remove chips or correct bevel in less than 2 hours. Use Arkansas stones for honing and polishing. Old timers call it ...
Post a Comment
Read more