Rust-B-Gone!
I wrote this last night, but just realized I had never hit the publish button. Sorry about that. But here it is….
My five gallon bucket of Rust-B-Gone came while I was out of town. So I decided to do a little experiment. I took the rustiest thing I had (other than the truck) which was a very very old bandsaw blade and put it in a container of Rust-B-Gone. It is about as close to magic as I think I’m going to get. 90% of the rust was gone after 10 minutes. I did NOT hit it with a wire brush or clean it in any way before putting it in the Rust-B-Gone. I just cut a section and threw it in.
MAN this stuff is cool. When I opened the bucket I thought it smelled familiar. It smells a whoooooole lot like the muriatic acid we use at the knife co-op to etch pattern welded blades. It is about the right color too for a seriously diluted mix. I may have some more experimentation to do to find out if that is the case.
Anyway, after 5 minutes a vast majority of the rust was gone. After 10 (as mentioned) almost all of it was gone. After 30 it looked pretty darn clean. So I took it out and washed it and dried it off. As soon as you take it out of the solution, it gets a thin black oxide layer on the surface. But it is about the consistency of candle soot, and a very quick pass with the wire brush makes everything gleam.
I’m going to try the roll-on application later in the week.
This is the rusty blade I'm testing
5 gal bucket of awesome.
Rusty blade in the Rust-B-Gone
Rust-B-Gone after 5 minutes
Rust-B-Gone after 10 minutes
Rust-B-Gone after 30 minutes
Out of the Rust-B-Gone and washed. Black oxide formed.
After a quick swipe with the wire brush.