TECH: low budget molasses rust removal

Okay boys and girls, come along and join me as I experiment with the poor man's friend. Molasses. Eco friendly, cheap, easy on the lungs, and no expensive equipment to buy. Since I have about 40 or 50 old wheels that need blasting, I decided to set myself up in the natural acid dipping business. First, it was off to the farm supply store to buy a plastic or rubber stock tank for watering livestock. Warning, do not use metal or galvanized tanks. Found a 100 gallon tank for $50. Here are the photos.

 

Next, it was off to the local feed mill where I bought 9 gallons of liquid molasses for a total of $11.

 

I drove carefully home so as not to spill the sticky stuff and I placed the tank in a grassy area to avoid messy concrete. Using a mixture of roughly 1 gallon of molasses to 10 gallons of water, I filled the tank after placing 6 wheels into the slop.

 

My crusty rusty artillery wheels are in the tank while I wait 7 days and allow nature to take it's course. Will my wheels look like new? Will this experiment fail? Tune in next Wed. night as I pull the wheels out for inspection.

 

...ha! make me a believer!

...man the rust is so bad on that bad boy i think it cut my eye through the comp. screen.

 

If it works, I would back the mixture off to 8/80 so you can get more than 1 wheel in there at a time! Bernouli Principle or something like that.
If it works, it will be awesome, if not, the ants will love your wheels!

 

It will work great on rusty metal. any alum. brass or bronze will wreak the mix and it won't work anymore. won't touch paint or grease so get that grease of first. Seen people make a wood frame and line with plastic and put full bodies in.take out and rinse with water and coat with something it will start to rust quick. I did my flathead block and some sheet metal. Darrell

 

I would like to do 4-6 wheels a week ideally in this tank. If it works good, I will buy a bigger tank for fenders, hoods, etc. If it is a bust, you're all invited to a Poverty Flats pancake feed featuring our very own homemade molasses topping.

 

I think it will work, but it's just too slow of a process for me...and you need acreage just to dump the stuff. Suppose to smell like hell after the molasses has converted.

 

That one wheel looks like a '36 Plymouth wheel. A friend of mine is looking for a spare if you've got an extra one.

 

Yeah, I got 3 of them. I'm going to sell them after I "restore" them to new condition in my new slop tank.

 

Interesting what things people are using to remove rust with, found this near me....
www.rustbeeter.com
same type of thing, molasses made from beets, i'd just get it from the feedmill though. Anxious to see how your wheels turn out! Good Luck!

 

Rustbeeter is a great product but expensive. Good for small quantity 5 gallon bucket type things like old wrenches, nuts and bolts, etc. I'm looking at big items that use alot of sand when blasted. Thanks for the encouragement.

 

what a TEASE!!! i was hoping for instant gratification!!

 

I tried it on some old wheel cylinders......left it in there for about 3 weeks....it did ok...

BUT I think I messed up......I used the dry powder instead of the liquid and after reading on the Fordbarn, I think I should have used the liquid.....

It did work Ok, like I said. If I took a wire brush and just lightly hit it, it really looked good. And, yes, they started to oxidize within just a few minutes......faster than after I sand blasted parts, sanded or cup brushed.....

Thanks for keeping up posted...I hope it works!

 

I'm an old fart and I never heard of this before. Hope it works.

 

Nice, Have pancakes and derust some parts at the same time!! MMMMM pancakes....

 

Molasses cookies are another possibility. Either way, we will not waste the product. We get our money's worth out of stuff around here.

 

I,ve been doing this for over a year now but mix it 7 parts water 3 parts feed grade molasses. A wheel like that will take at least a month, so don't get in a hurry...L.B.

 

This comes up about once a year. It works, according to those who have used it. Seems I remember the ratio of water to molasses is 3:1 to make an ideal rust removal solution. Rocky has done this and maybe he'll chime in with some more details.

Frank

 

Half the fun for me on these tech articles is the fun presentation, and you've got that!
I'm definetely gonna tune in next week to see what happens!

 

Why waste the molasses by eating it if it doesn't work....



Moonshine it!


Cheers, Glen.

 

3 to 1 is what I use, should be done in a week. It will clean areas of those wheels even sandblasting won't get. Cleans gas tanks like new, and kills the gasoline so you can solder/weld them. The whole piece has to be submersed or the gas from the juice will REALLY rust what's sticking out of your tank. I wash and scrub with Spray Nine and a brush and rinse, rinse, rinse. I have stuff laying in my shop for a year without primer after derusting that hasn't started to flash. The feed store stuff is made from red beets, the stuff you eat on pancakes is made from corn. All the rustbeeter guy is doing is getting rich. Cheapest easiest thing I've learned on the HAMB. Good tech.

 

my wife makes the best molasses sugar cookies.. mmmmm...

 

I thought your farmers wake up early... It's 8:00 and no pics!!

 

i payed my subscription fee for daily updates.....not weekly or monthly!

 

A sticky mess:

"BEDFORD, Ind. (AP) - A tank containing 15-hundred gallons of molasses ruptured at a feed store in Bedford, sending the sticky substance flowing into the street and stopping traffic.

Tanks holding the molasses at Flinn Family Farms Bedford Feed and Seed had just been filled Wednesday when one of them ruptured.
Store owner David Flinn says the molasses flowed from the tanks, across the parking lot and down the side of the road.

He called the fire department and attempted to build a dike around the molasses. The street outside the feed store was closed for about two hours while the mess was hosed into the sewer.

Molasses is used as an additive to animal food.

 

How about using cheap cola from the 99c store, instead of water to thin it?
It would get results quicker.
50 or so wheels like that one would take years and many more gallons of the sweet stuff, if you dip them individually...

I have used the super-simple electrolytic rust removal method many times with excellent results. No sticky mess that way and no expense.
- Battery charger, scrap steel sheets, washing soda and tap water.
And the solution can be reused again and again.

Still, blasting off the rust is probably the quickest method and you know quickly if a wheel can be re-used at all.

 

Well Shit!!! Here it is Thursday night and no "results pictures". What happened??? Did the molasses eat the wheel up entirely???--- Nothing to photograph???

 

Come on guys! I only put the wheels in the tank yesterday on Wed. This is Thursday. We have 6 more days to wait. All good things come to those who wait.