Oxalic Acid. Removing rust from Chrome the very best way! Options

[Ted Carl]

It will work like a charm on Nickel....

quote:

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What instructions does it give if you ingest it ? Drink milk or induce vomiting.
It says harmful to skin on the bottle , whats the burn factor like if you get splashed with it , it's obviously going to be proportional to the mixture....speaking of which "a few ounces in a large tub of water" is a bit of a vague mixture ratio

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Funny you should ask. One bottle says Milk of magnesia, and DO induce, the other says large doses of water and Do NOT.

The mixure is by experimentaion. I filled the laundry room sink about 2 inches deep to cover the forks and most of the handlebars, and plunked the clump of what was left of the bottle from 1990 into there. Not quite up to the barcode on the bottle is all that I had left in that bigger bottle.

It doesn;t take much.

I splash around in it without gloves. leaves your hands kinda stinky and orange (rust in the water) colored for a bit, but it doesnt burn you at that concentration....

[ April 01, 2006, 08:02 PM: Message edited by: Ted Carl ]

[Randy]

Those before pictures make you want to slap whoever owned that bike.

Almost looks like it fell in a vat of cocoa powder.

Well done Ted!

[rumblerdave]

Thank you for posting this! Probably the most usefull & informative post I have ever seen on this site, or any other site. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

How did you polish the paint- it looks great.

[velocidad]

Yeah what a great post Ted, and great pics as always - thx man, I'll be trying this.

[Jet Black]

My expedition to the local Bunnings , was interesting but fruitless , the guy knew what I was after , but couldn't find it , as I wandered past the thinners section pricing 20 liter Xylene & Tolulene drums (octance/anti detonation additives) to compare against 200liter drums , I found a 1 litre bottle of liquid Oxalic Acid & cut down to 10% purity & $14 !!!

The instructions said you could step on it further to make 5 liters in total , I never buy product that far down the line , it's always expensicve & heavily stepped no matter what you are buying , so I'll have to go to the Pharmacy for the good stuff, BP.
It did give me a reasonable "working guide" on how to cut & dilute the pure crystal.
I missed reading the safety instructions , they are usually a good guide as to what you are dealing with , Ted seems to be dealing with confused manufacturers ....

JB

[COASTY]

Great stuff Ted, Maybe theres hope for some of my bits yet.

[Ted Carl]

Randy, the saddest part of this one, is when you take a look at the parts closely.

Look at the fork dropouts. You can see that the front wheel was removed once, and replaced once with a different washer.

The rear wheel was not adjusted more than 4-6 times.

The scratches were from storage only.

This would have been one clean 79 if the guy's parents would not have tossed it out of the garage and into the weather a couple of years ago.

In fact, it was used so lightly, the only real damage is from water.

Sad, in a way. But I have it now, so it has a happy ending , and his kid got a new Trek MTB out of the deal.

[rick kast]

i clicked over from the vintage side, when i saw the heading, i said, " obviously ted collected beer cans when he was young." lol
i still have whats left of my container from 78, and yes they wanted to know what the hell an 11 yr old kid wanted with that stuff.

[Ted Carl]

I thought I would clarify that I am not knocking the Evapo-rust. That stuff really does work, and has some great potential for certain tasks.

The fact that the part has to remain submerged, and that it costs like (?) 700 dollars for a 55 gallon drum of it leads me right back to this technique for anything that wont fit in a tupperware dish.....

[ettsn]

I picked up a spray bottle of pre-mixed Oxalyic Acid solution from Home Depot the other day. It worked a charm! I found it in the plumbing department in a white spray bottle, with an orange label and sprayer under a brand name like Rust-b-Gone (or something, it's down in the garage). I went specifically looking for Oxalyic Acid, and they didn't have 'wood bleach' or anything like it, so I went hunting. I found this stuff, tried it and took a heap of rust off an old Haro. Not done yet, but certainly underway! I think the spray bottle type is great for surface rust on chrome bikes especially. It's easy to use, and the bottle was like $5, so minimal investment. Check it out.

-Paul