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Tips/Techniques Rust removal on the cheap, but better than evaporust

Tips/Techniques
Dabbler said:
This formula is better than mine!

Click to expand...
I took the time to try this out. The citric acid was purchased from the Bulk Barn here in Calgary for ~$25.00 for 1 pound (454grams). I used Arm and Hammer baking soda for my mix. (I actually used "used baking soda" that was in my fridge. Swapped it out for the new box.)

Made a small 0.5 litre batch as per the video.

20241211_210744.jpg20241211_175828.jpg

These items were found in the ground while metal detecting over the summer.




20241212_164721.jpg20241212_164730.jpg

I would say this potion is very effective. I put everything in yesterday evening for about 3-4hours. The small pliers where removed last night. I should have removed everything last night. It was all looking pretty good.

This afternoon I pulled out the punch and the sockets. You can see the punch has a fair bit of pitting on it now. I didn't see that on the punch last night.

All the items were placed in the solution as they were found. The pliers I had sprayed with WD40 to see if I could get them to move. I never cleaned the WD40 off....just threw them into the solution.


Cheers,
 
I too am going to give this a serious try-out as I start the disassembly/refurb of the Ford-Smith horizontal mill I bought this fall. As a previous advocate and serious user of Evaporust (Mystery Shaper Rejuvenation), I am familair with the pros/cons of that projduct. For this shaper project I ended up with 3 or 4 pails of Evaporust ($$$$), which is why I'm interested in cheaper alternatives.

To make this worthy while I needed some bulk supply of the citric-acid and sodium bi-carbonate. I found that these are two ingredients in 'bath bombs' and after a little googling found a Calgary source called Soap and More (no affiliation). They sell in bulk and at reasonable prices, I'm not posting links.

Citric Acid - 25KG for 115.00
Sodium Soda (sodium bicarbonate) 22.98KG for 49.00

Going by the formula in the video at 100G citric-acid per 1 Litre, this should mix up about 250L, and at 63G of baking soda/litre the bag should make 360+ litres.

I didn't look into the shipping costs, just had it held for pickup (max 14 days) until I was up briefly over new years.

I'll post my test results in this thread and will start a new thread for the Ford-Smith project.

I really hope this works because with Evaporust at $120/13.2 litres, the 170 I spent would make the equivalent of $2200 of evaporust.
 

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Perry said:
I took the time to try this out. The citric acid was purchased from the Bulk Barn here in Calgary for ~$25.00 for 1 pound (454grams). I used Arm and Hammer baking soda for my mix. (I actually used "used baking soda" that was in my fridge. Swapped it out for the new box.)

Made a small 0.5 litre batch as per the video.

View attachment 55816View attachment 55815

These items were found in the ground while metal detecting over the summer.




View attachment 55818View attachment 55819

I would say this potion is very effective. I put everything in yesterday evening for about 3-4hours. The small pliers where removed last night. I should have removed everything last night. It was all looking pretty good.

This afternoon I pulled out the punch and the sockets. You can see the punch has a fair bit of pitting on it now. I didn't see that on the punch last night.

All the items were placed in the solution as they were found. The pliers I had sprayed with WD40 to see if I could get them to move. I never cleaned the WD40 off....just threw them into the solution.


Cheers,
Click to expand...

Were those items brought up from the Titanic?:) That's a fair bit of rust.

Most of the stuff I am removing rust from just needs a shot of Fluid Film. Spray it on, let it sit for a few hours, and then scrub with a green scour pad, my wife's tooth brush, whatever works. Then another wipe with more Fluid Film to help prevent further rust.

Rust.jpg
Top item used to look like the bottom item. Obviously not as rusty as your items and more work involved but the clean-up is simple
 
Any chemists here?
If the objective of mixing water, sodium carbonate (or bicarbonate) and citric acid is to produce a solution of water and sodium citrate, why not just buy sodium citrate powder and mix in water?
I see I can buy 1 kg of sodium citrate powder on Amazon for $27.
Or I can buy citric acid powder and washing (baking) soda, mix and end up with the same thing. OR, am I missing something?
 
FatherWes said:
Any chemists here?
If the objective of mixing water, sodium carbonate (or bicarbonate) and citric acid is to produce a solution of water and sodium citrate, why not just buy sodium citrate powder and mix in water?
I see I can buy 1 kg of sodium citrate powder on Amazon for $27.
Or I can buy citric acid powder and washing (baking) soda, mix and end up with the same thing. OR, am I missing something?
Click to expand...
Citric acid in bulk is $2 a pound, a box of Baking soda? $4 maybe.
 
@FatherWes great question! Y

You make a a solution of citric acid in water, and it's pH goes down to 3 or 4. this will attack metal as well as the oxides on the surface. To slow the reaction with the metals you 'buffer' the citric acid with enough sodium carbonate, or sodium bicarbonate to take the pH back to around 7, slowing considerably the reaction with the non-oxidized metal. For reasons unknown to me, this buffered solution seems to work faster than the unbuffered one,

All I know is that it works faster than vinegar and is far less destructive than muriatic acid...
 
OK guys, you've got me interested enough that I ordered some Citric Acid (2 lb or 907 g) and a box of Baking Soda (1kg).

Is it a good idea to mix a batch of 9 liters of water using up the complete bag of Citric Acid and 1/2 of the Baking soda and to keep this stored to be pulled out when needed or is it better to mix the amount required for the size of parts that need the treatment?

Will be testing this out this evening :) (Feeling like a chemist lol!!!)
 
lucsimoneau said:
OK guys, you've got me interested enough that I ordered some Citric Acid (2 lb or 907 g) and a box of Baking Soda (1kg).

Is it a good idea to mix a batch of 9 liters of water using up the complete bag of Citric Acid and 1/2 of the Baking soda and to keep this stored to be pulled out when needed or is it better to mix the amount required for the size of parts that need the treatment?

Will be testing this out this evening :) (Feeling like a chemist lol!!!)
Click to expand...
I would just mix 4L, that way it would fit in a (well labeled) water bottle.
 
I would just mix enough to do the job you're doing. It's such a small amount you need to mix I don't keep it around unless I'm planning on doing a lot of parts back to back.

For instance I may use a cup of citric acid powder for a 5gallon bucket. And that's lots. For a litre a couple tablespoons does the trick.

It works way faster if you can keep the water nice and warm.
 
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