Favorite way to remove rust...

[Jon McElwain]

I moved from Juneau to Colorado this year - what a radical environmental change! Wet/cold/humid to dry/hot/low humidity!! Where were you located? Where did you move to? I am going through a serious learning curve on how to deal with wood movement and such with the environmental change. Also, I am finding that my belts and seals and such dry out and I'm not sure how to deal with that! Anyone have suggestions?

I spent lots of time de-rusting tools up there. My shop was always heated, I ran a de-humidifier continuously, and always kept cast iron surfaces coated with wax/Pledge/light oil etc. Even so, there were always the spots you missed and rust found its way in.

I used an ingersol-rand surface prep kit that did a good job on surfaces without being too aggressive on the metal. Coat with your favorite wax etc.

I use Soft Scrub to remove rust stains very easily - not great for surface rust, but pin holes in painted surfaces where rust has stained the paint.

[Gary Dunning]

Anyone have expierience with it? According to my web research baking soda is non-abrasive, but will remove paint, and rust, but does not harm plastic, rubber or fiberglass gell coat. So it's used to clean aircraft and boats among other things. Amazon offers a small unit that's inexpensive. H.F. has a bigger capacity set up that an Amazon reviewer praised.

[Jaze Derr]

All these methods look fine but take elbow grease and time, I find the power blast to be most effective. Try lead shot in a size 9 pattern use a 12 guage double barrel full choke gun and fire away, 12 to 14 blasts should do the average size joiner. If you are more enviromentally oriented you may want to try the steel shot if so switch to no 6 shot and use a modified choke barrel... now where did I put my bottle of bourbon???

Just thought I would try to bring a smile to you what a lousy thing to happen to your tools, but with a lot of work they will be just as good as when you put them in storage...just would have been much nicer to take them out and see them ready to work

hope you are up and running soon

Carl

Aw, and here I was reaching for my shotgun to clean my rusty bandsaw table...

[Jack Pinkham]

A phosphoric acid solution followed by a conversion coating. Sherwin-Williams products are described here: http://www.sherwin-automotive.com/me...ish/AS1025.pdf
For deep rust use 2" or 3" diameter Scotch-Brite surface conditioning discs on a pneumatic angle die grinder, followed by the etch and conversion coating.

[Chris Fournier]

There is absolutely no need to grind, brush or sand the surfaces that are being discussed. Fact is, with the mechanical methods recommended your surfaces will bear witness to the fact that rust was removed - not nice to look at and it reduces the value of your equipment/tools.

I have used a car battery charger, a scrap of steel, a water/baking soda solution and a plastic tub to remove rust from metal items for years. I'm talking about rusted castings that looked like junk to hand tools that look like they were buried for years. I didn't have to use harch chemicals or a lick of elbow grease and the results would beat the elbow grease method every time.

I have discovered that large flat surfaces like a table saw top can be cleaned up of rust without being in a water bath, a wet towel can be used instead of immersion. Clever idea, I wish that it had been mine but thanks goes to Frank Ford!

Quick 6 mil poly lined "wood tubs" can be made up in the shop for dedicated rust clean up and then just as quickly dismantled.

Check out this link and you will never remove rust mechanically again:

http://www.frets.com/HomeShopTech/Qu...stremoval.html

[Jaze Derr]

I had found this thread a while ago, and decided on trying Evapo-rust for my bandsaw table.

My results:
Here's the bandsaw table, after neglect in someone's garage, and then being moved in a downpour:


Before you start yelling at me, those can rings were already there!! I don't put drinks on my tools!


Most of it was from the rain, so pretty superficial, but the can rings and a few other spots were older and deeper.

After two hours in the highly advanced soaking tub of a cardboard box and garbage bag:


All the rain rust was gone, and most of the deeper rust, too. This was workable, but I was out of shop time, so I let it sit for 24 hours.

After a light scrub with a green pad and some wd-40:


Not too shabby. I put 3 light coats of paste wax on it. You can still see a few of the can rings (grrr) and there's a couple pits, but overall, I'm pleased.

The Evapo-rust worked well, was pretty cheap ($30 at Harbor Freight for a gallon) and is reusable! Didn't have a horrible smell to it, but it ended up smelling a bit...swampy is the only way I'd describe it. Not too strong, though, and definitely better than a solvent smell.

I filtered the solution back into it's original container, ready for more derusting!

[Jack Pinkham]

Rust removal using spuds:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYgnHDB3VNI

[Brian Jarnell]

On flat surface, I use 240 grit sand paper with an orbital sander.

[Anthony Diodati]

On flat surface, I use 240 grit sand paper with an orbital sander.

Well, I got some of the Bar Keepers friend, I wanted to clean the bottom of my Craftsman bench top drill press, (the base, not the table) so I thought I'd try the BKF. 1st. I used some WD-40 and q razor blade, the rust wasn't real bad or anything, not pitted either.
But unless I didn't use a course enough pad, I used one of those kitchen sponges, with the scrubber back on them, but I wasn't too impressed.
I finaly got out the ROS with some dry fine paper on it, and went at it, trying to stay as even as I could.
Then cleaned it up with paint thinner and waxed it.
I know some are not fond of using the ROS, but in this case, I look at the base, and can still see the original grinding marks, sort of a cross hatch pattern, like you see machine shops do on automotive fly wheels sometimes.
Blanch grinder I think they call it. So IMO how much metal could I really have hogged off, and how "out of flat" could I really have made it?
This drill press is sweet BTY, passes the nickel test too!
Thanks, Tony

[Brian Jarnell]

Well, I got some of the Bar Keepers friend, I wanted to clean the bottom of my Craftsman bench top drill press, (the base, not the table) so I thought I'd try the BKF. 1st. I used some WD-40 and q razor blade, the rust wasn't real bad or anything, not pitted either.
But unless I didn't use a course enough pad, I used one of those kitchen sponges, with the scrubber back on them, but I wasn't too impressed.
I finaly got out the ROS with some dry fine paper on it, and went at it, trying to stay as even as I could.
Then cleaned it up with paint thinner and waxed it.
I know some are not fond of using the ROS, but in this case, I look at the base, and can still see the original grinding marks, sort of a cross hatch pattern, like you see machine shops do on automotive fly wheels sometimes.
Blanch grinder I think they call it. So IMO how much metal could I really have hogged off, and how "out of flat" could I really have made it?
This drill press is sweet BTY, passes the nickel test too!
Thanks, Tony

Good to see you like doing it the hard way.

[Anthony Diodati]

Good to see you like doing it the hard way.

Well I do not feel it was so hard.
I think working with the razor blade 1st, left me less sanding to do with the ROS.
Thanks, Tony

[Mike Konobeck]

The BKF works. Just have to make sure that you let it sit on the surface for a little bit and let the acid do some work. If you rush it it won't work very well. Since it is acid based there is no specific "activator" required to make it into a workable solution. I prefer oil just because it does not introduce another friend of rust.

Jaze, that table turned out nice. Give BKF a try to get the rings out. I would almost guarentee it will do so. I bought a combo machine that had a surface that had seen its better days. Rings and stains were no match. Took me a few trys but I got the mixture right of BKF and oil and it worked wonders. I have a few stains that I was just lazy about. I know I could have pulled them out if I would have tried harder. Just needed to get to working wood instead of metal. Not my strong suit. Heck, neither is working wood but I try.

As for the oxalic acid not being absorbed through the skin I would just stay on the safe side and use gloves and not do the "one for you, one for me" trick with it in any form. There are plenty of chemicals that we deal with that are likely more harmful but no sense messing around with it. I am sure that as we cut MDF that has been treated with the "f" word it is much worse for us. My wife is a scientist and she is very knowledable about chemicals. Works with them every day and I run this stuff by her all of the time. She is amazed at some of the crap that we use. Unfortunately the wood itself, tools, and finishes present some intersting issues.

[Anthony Diodati]

I'll have to try the BKF again then. But let it sit longer. I did let it sit a bit, but think I was inpatient.
I will say one thing, I had some kind of weird stain in my bathroom sink, don't know what from, it was blue. Pretty sure I used regular cleanser on it before, and it wouldn't come out, but the BKF took it right out.

So IOW oil, water, don't matter what you mix it with? As some have stated you must use water with it to release the acid.
Thanks, Tony