This is about rust. What is it, how does it happen, & what do you do about it? The best ways to prevent it.
I like to restore old things as a hobby and there was inevitable rust.
I use a combination of methods. Obviously I can't put this thing in a home tank.
Look at the rust on the inner Fender in the foreground. Unless I get creative, or pay somebody with a big tank, it's too big to dip. This one will get wire wheels and Evapo-rust.
Evapo-rust works great but like most commercial preparations you can find in a local store, it's very expensive if you need to soak big parts.
I have a 55 gal plastic drum as a tank. Probably $400 to fill that.
Much cheaper, vinegar works pretty good overnight, and if you heat it up it only takes a few hours or less.
Also if you add salt in 1/16 by volume, (one cup to a gallon of vinegar) it will work faster but keep an eye on the process if you have delicate parts like Springs,, and may just eat them up. In fact I would not use this method on Springs at all as I think it ruins spring steel quickly.
I find the vinegar can get weak quickly. And it still gets sort of expensive for large parts where you need a drum. $50 to fill that with Supermarket quality vinegar.
Here I'm using a drum full of water and about 4 cups of Arm & Hammer washing soda. Maybe $1.50 worth, energized with a small battery charger, to take the rust off an old Ford wheel. The process is finished here or you would see the surface covered with bubbles and the wheel would be invisible under it.
That old copper tube is my bus bar and connects all the sacrificial anodes to the positive terminal of the battery charger. The negative terminal goes on your part. (If you get this backwards will notice your part gets even rustier!)
Like all chemical processes, it works better if you keep it warm. The nice thing about this method is that when the rust is gone it just stops working. It won't eat the un-rusty steel.
You can see a little rusty water clinging to it, but all the rust is gone from this old wheel. It's covered with black soot, which I will wash off with Jasco's metal prep before painting.
The process uses sacrificial steel anodes (sticking up out of the tank and very rusty in the photo) in the process, and the sacrificial anodes just turn to rust and crumble away in the bottom of the drum. You can see mine are very rusty because they've been turned upside down and the shiny areas stuck back in the tank to use again. These are ready to toss out.
When shiny, the sacrificial anodes work very well but as they get rusty they don't work very well. You can scrape them clean and then they work again. I tend to use sheet metal, and just toss it away when it turns to Rusty Swiss cheese.
Anyhow you can use electrolysis like this to remove rust on small parts as well. It works in a coffee cup or a bucket just as well as in a 55 gallon drum or a 5000 gallon tank. The 5000 gallon tank will require a larger charger.
Washing soda is very cheap so your only real cost is electricity to run the battery charger. The sediment in the bottom of the tank is pretty much rusty mud when you get done. You can pour the water off on the lawn. It's basically no more than soapy water with a little dirt in it.
The bubbles this process produces are free gases: hydrogen and oxygen. Risk of an explosion is very small but it's best to do this outside & don't try to make sparks. Hydrogen is so light that it rises through the atmosphere quickly and disappears while oxygen is heavier and tends to sink, so this reduces the danger to almost nothing as long as you have ventilation.
I have by the way made sparks right above the water in a fully bubbling tank, and there is no big explosion at all, because there is no containment of the gases. You might get a little pop. I have to try in order to make one. Anyhow the point is the whole thing is not going to explode and because it runs on only 12 volts it's not electrically dangerous either.
I like to restore old things as a hobby and there was inevitable rust.
I use a combination of methods. Obviously I can't put this thing in a home tank.
Look at the rust on the inner Fender in the foreground. Unless I get creative, or pay somebody with a big tank, it's too big to dip. This one will get wire wheels and Evapo-rust.
Evapo-rust works great but like most commercial preparations you can find in a local store, it's very expensive if you need to soak big parts.
I have a 55 gal plastic drum as a tank. Probably $400 to fill that.
Much cheaper, vinegar works pretty good overnight, and if you heat it up it only takes a few hours or less.
Also if you add salt in 1/16 by volume, (one cup to a gallon of vinegar) it will work faster but keep an eye on the process if you have delicate parts like Springs,, and may just eat them up. In fact I would not use this method on Springs at all as I think it ruins spring steel quickly.
I find the vinegar can get weak quickly. And it still gets sort of expensive for large parts where you need a drum. $50 to fill that with Supermarket quality vinegar.
Here I'm using a drum full of water and about 4 cups of Arm & Hammer washing soda. Maybe $1.50 worth, energized with a small battery charger, to take the rust off an old Ford wheel. The process is finished here or you would see the surface covered with bubbles and the wheel would be invisible under it.
That old copper tube is my bus bar and connects all the sacrificial anodes to the positive terminal of the battery charger. The negative terminal goes on your part. (If you get this backwards will notice your part gets even rustier!)
Like all chemical processes, it works better if you keep it warm. The nice thing about this method is that when the rust is gone it just stops working. It won't eat the un-rusty steel.
You can see a little rusty water clinging to it, but all the rust is gone from this old wheel. It's covered with black soot, which I will wash off with Jasco's metal prep before painting.
The process uses sacrificial steel anodes (sticking up out of the tank and very rusty in the photo) in the process, and the sacrificial anodes just turn to rust and crumble away in the bottom of the drum. You can see mine are very rusty because they've been turned upside down and the shiny areas stuck back in the tank to use again. These are ready to toss out.
When shiny, the sacrificial anodes work very well but as they get rusty they don't work very well. You can scrape them clean and then they work again. I tend to use sheet metal, and just toss it away when it turns to Rusty Swiss cheese.
Anyhow you can use electrolysis like this to remove rust on small parts as well. It works in a coffee cup or a bucket just as well as in a 55 gallon drum or a 5000 gallon tank. The 5000 gallon tank will require a larger charger.
Washing soda is very cheap so your only real cost is electricity to run the battery charger. The sediment in the bottom of the tank is pretty much rusty mud when you get done. You can pour the water off on the lawn. It's basically no more than soapy water with a little dirt in it.
The bubbles this process produces are free gases: hydrogen and oxygen. Risk of an explosion is very small but it's best to do this outside & don't try to make sparks. Hydrogen is so light that it rises through the atmosphere quickly and disappears while oxygen is heavier and tends to sink, so this reduces the danger to almost nothing as long as you have ventilation.
I have by the way made sparks right above the water in a fully bubbling tank, and there is no big explosion at all, because there is no containment of the gases. You might get a little pop. I have to try in order to make one. Anyhow the point is the whole thing is not going to explode and because it runs on only 12 volts it's not electrically dangerous either.
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