I have a very rusty Model A cowl and bits that I am trying to repair, I bought 10 litres of evaporust which and cost $100 itworks great for about 1 use, then when it turns black it no longer works. So I found a guy on youtube who had a recipe, so I gave it a try. It works great and is cheap to make (about $15 for 10 litres) for every litre of water use 100 grams of citric acid, which I got from a home brew shop for $12 a kilo. $40 grams of washing soda which I got from the supermarket $5 kilo A good squirt of dish soap. Thats it, see the results of my cowl panel in less than 24 hours, link below to video The Ultimate HOMEMADE Rust Remover (Better than EvapoRust)
Just make sure you rinse the parts well after the chemical bath. You don't want the stuff to keep working, or you will never get paint to stick, and eventually the mix will eat away the remaining metal.
Been using citric acid for years, based on the recommendations on the forum. A before and after of my '64 bumper ends.
I use a home made electrolysis stripper. Need a plastic tub of water that covers the part to be stripped. Add 2 tables****s of baking soda per gallon of water. Need some steel anodes that all the parts of the part to be stripped can 'see'. Use short chunks of rebar. Clamp the rebar to the (plastic) container and connect them all together, don't want them to touch the treated parts. Now attach copper lead wires to the part and the rebar anode array. Connect the anode (rebar ) wire to the positive lead from a 12V battery charger and the part wire to the negative lead. Then just wait, over night for heavy rust. The liquid will turn red/brown and form a corrosion s*** on the surface. Check part occasionally and, when done, rust is totally gone. Rinse, wire brush and part is done. Cheap and easy!
Someone posted the same recipe awhile back. I’d saved the screenshot of it, but I must have deleted it. I’d bought a 5lb box of washing soda but lost the screenshot of amounts to use. Glad it got posted again. I’ve always just mixed the CA with water and let it be.
I do the same. I use a big red cup of CA to about 5 gallons of water. Always leave it outside if possible. Used inside, I've had metals close by react to it. Rinse with baking soda and water. I use about a 1,/2 small box to a large pail of water.
I don't know about the wash soda, but the citric acid and water works great. And an added bonus is that when you are done with it you can just dump it on the ground. Very non toxic! Is the wash soda non toxic as well?
Here is the previous post: Cleaning with Citric Acid "I want to share the process as I know it for fast, cheap and easy rust removal using powdered citric acid. I've seen folks using mol***es, vinegar, electrolysis and expensive store bought products to remove rust. I leaned about citric acid from my brother a few years ago and have never looked back. Here is the process I’ve used with great success, hope this can help my fellow Hambers. step 1 I bought this 5lb bag of powdered citric acid online for about 16$ shipped. For these parts I'll use about 3 cups dissolved in warm water then added to my 5-gallon bucket. A big Rubbermaid tote works well for this also. I’m not to scientific with the measurements, this stuff is cheap enough. Here are the parts and some small hand tools I'll be de rusting. Normally I'd give these a quick pressure wash first but my washer wouldn't cooperate so I did these as is. Once your acid is mixed dump it in the bucket, where your parts are already covered in water. Now it's as easy as letting them soak, 24 hours is usually plenty, sometimes I leave the worst parts in longer. The Citric acid is mild enough it won't damage anything but the rust. Now after your soak pull out your parts and they don’t look impressive just yet. If you have a pressure washer use it here. If not, a wire or nylon bristle brush will clean off all of the loosened rust. Give it a quick wash and your parts should look like this. This is after a grand total of maybe 5 minutes with a wire brush. The rust will literally just scrub right off. Its that easy! When I’m finished with the acid bath, I neutralize it with a cup of baking soda then dump it out in my side yard. It doesn’t even hurt the gr***. The acid is so mild it doesn’t burn your hands or put off any odor. I did all of this batch in my garage with no problems at all. Also, I've painted parts that have held up very well for several years after this process. Hope this helps you guys. If anyone else wants to add to this thread feel free to do so. " I have used this recipe along with other friends. It is absolutely marvelous. Warren
White vinegar has always been my go-to on small stuff. It's cheap, and no voo-doo mixing required. Anything that'll fit in a 5ga bucket, works great. Not recommended on chrome parts, that's for Oxalic acid.
I have used this too and it really works better than commercial rust removers. The Ultimate HOMEMADE Rust Remover (Better than EvapoRust) The key is the measurement of the ingredients verified by measuring the ph . I can't overstate this especially when increasing your batch size for soaking large parts. Close will not net you the desired results. It lasts much longer that EvapRust too.
@wuga That was my tech post here a few years ago. Im not saavy enough to post a link. Thanks for sharing that. I still use the CA method all the time.
White vinegar works great for parts that have old nickle plating too. Head light rings on my DBs are br*** with nickle plating. About an hour in a vinegar bath and they look good.
Here’s our setup, a 400 gallon tank with citric acid. We used a 50lb tub of the powder. It worked about half the summer. We’d switch out the parts every two or three weeks. The summer we used mol***es, one batch worked well the whole summer.
The odd thing here is that the soda is an alkali, the citric acid an acid (!), so they will tend to neutralize each other. I guess the sodium citrate formed is also a rust remover?
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