Cleaning Katrina damaged/rusted guns

[Ricochet]

Molasses works after it's been fermenting in the open air for a while. It produces organic acids that take the rust off quite effectively. Keep the vat downwind of your house, or you'll get chin music from the little woman.

Tannin boiled out of oak leaves is effective for removing light rust and leaving a blackened surface finish on steel. Lots of trappers have treated their traps this way.

[StarMetal]

John,

How about boiling traps in walnut shells, those outer shells that stain your finger, not the harder one the nut is inside.

Joe

[Scrounger]

John,

How about boiling traps in walnut shells, those outer shells that stain your finger, not the harder one the nut is inside.

Joe

We always called them 'hulls'.

[Jumptrap]

Har! A subject dear to my heart.

If you notice the handle.....I used to be handy at placing steel bracelets on critters..before Cleveland Amory and his lfet wing bunny huggers effectively killed the fur market...god rest his disgusting soul.

I always boiled my traps in walnut hulls. It never removed any of the rust....didn't want it to. A new trap is boiled in lye and then left to mother nature for a week or three. They will take a nice even rust all over...that is what holds the dying. Then, I'd fill the old cast iron wash pot with water and walnust hulls and get it boiling well. The trap chain rings were wired together and the whole les dropped in the pot and submerged. i would do maybe 4 dozen at a time. They were kept boiling for an hour or so and then the fire was left to die. I'd pull the traps the next day when they had cooled. The result was an even flat black all over. The traps would be sterlized free of odors. I then melted paraffin wax in a seperate container and dip each trap until hot then slowlt withdraw it and let it drip. The result was a very thin coat that preserved the finish and made it worked like greased lightning. As for oak leaves....they work but are a mess to fool with. The local streams in the fall run black from all the leaves that fall in them. I often wondered how the fish cope with it.

[StarMetal]

Jump,

I guess we done the same thing to our traps. The walnut hulls kind of pickled the steel.

Joe

[wills]

Blackwater, found the jug I mentioned. The product is made by a company called skyco no address, but the ingredients are listed as phosphoric acid and dichromatic acid. hope this helps. If nothing else fall back of naval jelly. Last I looked they make different types. Steel, aluminum. Frank

Might this be it?

http://www.ospho.com/

[carpetman]

Wills---No the Skyco Ospho's were not the opponents in the super bowl.

[Frank46]

wills, yes you got it right. My jug matches the one on the web site. Darn that stuff is expensive!!!!!!. I have a half gallon or so left. Frank

[Ricochet]

Oh yeah, the marine archaeologists' solution they use to soak out the chlorides is sodium sesquicarbonate. All that is, is half sodium carbonate and half sodium bicarbonate.

I've used sodium bicarbonate for electrolysis, but it's harder to get enough dissolved and carrying enough current for the job than with sodium carbonate. Lye will work, but is very caustic. Other alkaline salts like TSP should work too.

[Frank46]

Ricochet, our oil spill contractors after all the bulk oil was cleaned up used to spray a caustic solution on the steel and concrete. Let it sit overnight and hit it with a hot water pressure washer and no more oil. But you had to flush everything with loads of water afterwards as the metal would rust like crazy. They also use a bromine (spelling) solution during boiler washes. At times we would have to wear full face respirators as the ammonia smell was that bad. Really great stuff. Usually once they did the bromine wash they had to flush out the whole boiler for if they left it in there too long they usually ended up with leaks in the boiler tubes. Course after the wash they had to hydrostatically test the boiler.
If they didn't have leaks before they had them when the test was done. I hated boiler washes. Frank

[wills]

sodium sesquicarbonate
http://www.chemistrystore.com/sodium...icarbonate.htm

http://www.chemistrystore.com/index.html

[lastmanout]

I have used the battery charger/ baking soda/water trick many times. Really works great. ALWAYS my first choice on rusty steel and iron. Does not remove anything but the rust (just make sure you have the polarity right) Acids and abrasives can be used later if needed, but always remove more metal than needed.