Tool Talk
Wrench Forum => Wrench Forum => Topic started by: jockeylot on April 26, 2015, 05:26:56 AM
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I am wondering if someone can tell me the best way to clean abused tools. Sometimes I find tools that I can't even read the mfg. I have a sonic cleaner and have used wire wheel on grinder. Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
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I am wondering if someone can tell me the best way to clean abused tools. Sometimes I find tools that I can't even read the mfg. I have a sonic cleaner and have used wire wheel on grinder. Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Everyone has their own way of cleaning old rusty tools--I use a fairly pricy item called Evapo-rust(bout $25.00/gallom) on all chrome plated tools--can set in and soak for a week if necessary to destroy rust without any damage to chrome. Plain old white or apple cider vinegar will do a good job for Plain steel/non plated tools-takes getting used to with trial and error as the soak time is much shorter(start out @ 20 minutes & progress from there-can eat them up completely if left in too long. There is also a tread on this site or GG about electrolasis(12 volt battery & anode rod-very slow process)
I'm sure others can chime in on this subject--wire wheels work for only steel items where fit & finish is not critical--brass wheels are a much better item-much more $$cost wise. Blast cabinets with various sand media etc. also will work-can destroy metal rapidly-Do some reading up on this and other sites and you will find many solutions to your rust problems.
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Thank you so much for your advice. I will try the vinegar and lighten up on the wire wheel. LOL
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I bought a K-D tool - hose clamp pliers and tubing cutter. The tubing cutter wheels were rusty looking and froze solid. Then I went and dropped it in the snow on our walkway. The snow melted and I found them out in the yard. The dog must've picked them up and dropped them out there.
So I took them to work and soaked them in vinegar for about 24 hours (checked a few times in between). The rollers had freed up. I cleaned the tool with a 3" wire wheel on a drill motor. It came looking very nice - even the wheels cleaned up to where you would never know they were rusted at all.
Al
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Most of the time I use elbow grease and a brass wire brush.
Hard thick rust gets a bath in vinegar or sometimes a wire wheel.
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I clean / polish sockets with part of a extension in a drill press and a Scotch Brite pad. When i was still working i used the glass bead machine to clean the inside of sockets. I use to bead blast tools that were for myself. When i sell tools i de grease them, but leave the rust removel to the new owner. Everybody has there own method of rust removel.
EvilDr235
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I also use Evapo-rust, also have good luck with Gibb's for stuck items.
sometimes I use a wire wheel, but with VERY-FINE wires. brass wires prefered.
before all these so called safer cleaners came along, I liked a kerosene/transmission mix,
yup, that would be a home brew.
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We all have our own methods and each works to a point, to each his own. I've been thinking lately about a parts cleaning tank and pump like we used to use in auto repair and in my motorcycle shop. Think it would be useful?
Harbor Freight has a cheap small one that a gift card I received would finance.
(http://www.harborfreight.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/i/m/image_13088.jpg)
http://www.harborfreight.com/6-1-2-half-gallon-parts-washer-96952.html (http://www.harborfreight.com/6-1-2-half-gallon-parts-washer-96952.html)
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I use white vinegar followed by a buffing with an orange(coarse) Dico Nyalox nylon buffing wheel. Doesn't scratch like a wire wheel.
Prefer 6 inch diameter wheels. Using some 5 inch diameter wheels I bought in error but like the additional tip speed of the 6 inch.
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Thanks for all the inputs. My sonic cleaner does quite well for the grease. Will try the vinegar and brass wheel.
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Hello, I buy & sell quite a few tools, I mostly leave the final cleaning to the new owner. I clean all rust & grease with very hot water, & Simple Green, then a quick dry & a soak in the WD-40 vat, (I buy it by the gallon). Stubborn grease on plated tools gets paint or lacquer thinner, never on a painted tool!!!!!!!!! For bulk cleaning of small items & parts, I use vibratory tumblers, walnut shell, corn cob, sand, whatever the need dictates. I have used vinegar in the past, but be careful, it is very corrosive , and will eat the threads off of a fine thread screw if left for too long.
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Thanks for all the inputs. My sonic cleaner does quite well for the grease. Will try the vinegar and brass wheel.
WARNING ! a lot of the cheap brass wire wheels are only brass coated wire.
we talked about that in another forum.
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I clean a lot of auger bits and use vinegar and then a coarse wire wheel. I soak for 24 hours usually, less if its hot and more if its cold. For wrenches I again use 8 inch coarse wire wheels on blue steel wrenches and a fine wheel on plated wrenches. After cleaning thousands of wrenches I know how hard to push. Lastly I have a large blast cabinet and use Skat Blast in it for anything I will be painting. Using sand or anything like Skat Blast on a tool that is not to be painted is a serious mistake as it will never look correct after such treatment.
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We all have our own methods and each works to a point, to each his own. I've been thinking lately about a parts cleaning tank and pump like we used to use in auto repair and in my motorcycle shop. Think it would be useful?
Harbor Freight has a cheap small one that a gift card I received would finance.
(http://www.harborfreight.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/i/m/image_13088.jpg)
http://www.harborfreight.com/6-1-2-half-gallon-parts-washer-96952.html (http://www.harborfreight.com/6-1-2-half-gallon-parts-washer-96952.html)
I like the looks of that small cleaner. I think you should try it, at least we know it would work well for grease and grime. Since the pump handles solvents I would think it would do well with a mild acid.
Chilly
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Has anyone used a soda blaster?
Chilly
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I have and have used so many methods its ridiculous.
Never soda blasted but sand certainly.
I have wire brushes in many sizes and materials.
These are skill items. You can enhance or ruin at the drop of a hat, or a flick of the wrist in this case.
Always start off axis with any blaster or wheel. That means an indirect assault. A glancing blow.
If you hold a tool centered and advance to the center of the wheel and reel down............oh it'll cut! Probably more than you wanted. Remember you can't put metal back once its gone.
Always start light. Start kind of sideways. Work your way in. You never want to cut more than you have to.
Same with any kind of blasting. Don't just hold the gun dead perpendicular to the work, and bore straight in!!! You have a million subtle angles to try.
People use all kinds of overpriced media when really all they had to do was think while they work, and they could of used the cheapest sand.
Feather your way in boys! Ease into it.
A single edged razor blade scraper is never far from my reach. Ever.
I must have a dozen or more scattered around. Lately the dollar store is selling steel handle traditionals for a buck apiece, and cute little plastic holders at 4 fer a buck. Get some. Get plenty.
Once again, as with anything, these require skill. Forward or backwarks, direct assault or a million different subtle angles of cut.
Don't worry, just keep your eyes open and your lights on, you will pick up that skill pretty quick after you start to seriously work.
I like 3m scrub pads for hand work better than steel wool most times. The green ones have no abrasive at all. The red ones do, and cut well, but also wear quickly. So old red pads cut very finely. Its like a selection of grits.
Evaporust is a product targeted at the entitled lazy man who doesn't clean much. Its mostly for bragging. "I can afford to waste $25 a gallon on a 2 dollar tool and I want everyone to know." I'm not sure how this is an intelligent boast, but you sure hear it everywhere.
Citric acid is vastly cheaper and not as nasty as vinegar or most any other kind of acid.
Common muriatic (hydrochloric) acid will flat peel away rust like it was never there in very short order, but you are playing with your life now. Suit up!
Never use it indoors and suit up with all proper safety gear.
Also be prepared to go though acrobatics making sure its completely removed and neutralized afterwards.
Once set up electrolysis is basically free. Its slow, but its safe.
If you get some heavy plastic sheeting, like pond liner or something, you can make up wooden boxes of any size to suit your work, and line them.
Lately they say not to use stainless steel for your annode but I have been using a stainless pipe union for decades and I am only mostly dead. But I use low power. There are people who use arc welders and swimming pools to de-rust massive cannons and such. I imagine stainless would kill you there for sure.
But my little toy tank on 6 amps?? Anyway, a big heavy bolt or even a horseshoe would do for an annode as well. Plain steel gets ate up and pretty ugly, pretty fast. You'll see.
In the case of cast iron specifically, a quick hand brushing or light abrasive to dislodge loose rust, followed by a linseed oil bath, the excess wiped off quickly,
(hang any rags up in the air to dry)...........
then wait overnight??
by next day it will often make a beautiful black durable finish.
Doesn't work for steel, but regular coarse cast iron like coffee grinders or stoves or steam radiators or something?
Its almost a miracle.
This also works on wrought iron, the real stuff.
But that is not as common to find anymore.
yours Scott
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I also have a small bag of tricks but lately my first one has been Barkeepers Friend which gets some great results. It contains oxalic acid and I get it at the 99 cent store for the surprising sum of 99 cents. The supermarket has it as well but they get more money.
Here is a ratchet I just did and I'll let the results speak for themselves.
(https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7596/17204936751_a0d283f6a9_z.jpg)
(https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8820/16585281563_52d30cb7db_z.jpg)
I used the BKF with a soft brass bristle whitewall brush and water. Took about 15 minutes and got all the crud out from under my fingernails as a bonus.
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I liked that small cleaning tank also.
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Another evaporust user -- I've cleaned about 1,500 tools since last summer that way, plus a few by electrolysis, which produces similar results but is better on large items and useless for (say) a box of 200 drill bits. I buy Evaporust in 5 gallon buckets from Northern Tool, especially when I can find it on sale in the "hot deals" (or whatever they call it) newsletter, which gives me free shipping. TSC sells it by the gallon, which costs a bit more. E-R works better on some irons and steels than others (I find it worst on the plated ones); works better in warm weather than cold; removes some finishes, especially oxide finishes and japanning; gets used up in that as you use it, it quickly reaches a point where it turns black and leaves as much rust on a tool as it takes off; and even at its best leaves a light matte surface (usu grey) that needs to be buffed off with a soft wire wheel (I use one with brass-covered steel bristles at low rpms). Iron that is blistered with rust does not respond too well, and of course deeply pitted iron or steel remains deeply pitted. I find that electrolysis and Evaporust (which works by chelation, just like the old molasses-and-lemon-juice method) are quite similar in results: both leave a matte surface, both usually take 3 or 4 hours, but may need to be left in longer if seriously rusted.
For electrolysis I use a manual battery charger set at 6v/2amp for the power, a 30-gallon plastic trash can full of rainwater for the water supply, Arm&Hammer washing soda for the electrolyte, and a coil of common concrete-reinforcing mesh standing in the water as the cathode (with a bit of copper strip attached to make a convenient spot to attach the clip).
On this page: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~pfs/fun/Kiwanis/refurb.html (http://www-personal.umich.edu/~pfs/fun/Kiwanis/refurb.html) you'll find a log of the tools I've cleaned for the local thrift sale; links in the 'date borrowed' and 'date returned' columns will usually show before-and-after pix after my rather hasty de-rusting and occasional repainting and sharpening. Most of these are not intended as collectables, but as straight user tools, so I'm not too worried about authenticity and patina.
And here is the review I left on the NorthernTools site, regarding Evaporust:
" I've used two [make that 20 gallons now] gallons over the past three weeks to de-rust about 150 [now 1500] hand tools (donated to a charity thrift store) which were suffering from everything from light surface rust to deep pitting; some of the tools had the distinctive look of metal that had lived the last thirty years on, or under, a barn floor. Generally successful, sometimes surprisingly so, though sometimes need to soak them for up to 24 hours in extreme cases. Does better in warm weather, I think. Wears out when completely black, maybe 30-50 tools per gallon. Tends to leave a matte gray or black surface finish behind that needs to be removed with a wire wheel, wire brush, or steel wool, especially after the first use. Works best on mild steel or cast or malleable/ductile iron; much less successful on hardened steel (e.g. files) or alloy/tool steels (this is explicit in the instructions). Will soften and often remove paint. Will completely remove some japanning-like coatings and black oxide finishes. If the tool has wooden parts, will of course soak into the wood and may stain it black; remove them first if you can. In the attached photo (my latest batch of refurbishings), the large coarse rasp (top left) resisted most stubbornly -- took two days--; most of the rest did well. The Utica wrench (third wrench up) still shows staining in the plated alloy steel. Many of these started as almost unrecognizable blobs of rust., e.g. the old Stanley try square, the long-handled float lying behind it, and the tack puller to its left. In short, this is very good stuff, it won't last quite as long as you'd like, and it won't work quite as well as you hope on everything. But invaluable. Having used up my first two gallons, I'm prepared to buy the 5-gal. bucket and go from there. "
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J.A.F.E. can you please give more details on how you use Barkeepers Friend.
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They have BKF at the 99 cent store?! I'll be looking! I've only started using the stuff, and so far it's made me pretty happy. I haven't tried a big project with it yet.
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Do you use the liquid?, powder & water, cream?
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Barkeepers I use is like a powder cleanser not sure if it comes in other forms. I wet the ratchet and did a preclean with the BKF and brass bristle brush then applied a paste which I let sit a few minutes and then the brush (the one I have is for cleaning whitewall tires so you know how old that is). then another cleaning and another paste soak. Maybe three or four times before I was happy. Only took about ten or fifteen minutes although my wife made me reclean the laundry room sink a couple times until it passed inspection so add a few more minutes for that.
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Do you use the liquid?, powder & water, cream?
Yes, it comes in liquid form, too.
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Thanks J.A.F.E. I will try that.
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I just saw a U tube video on soda blasting with a home made blaster. Looks like it works good on small pieces. I think it would take forever on anything large.