[AT] OT-Rust solution

Mogrits mogrits at gmail.com
Sun Jan 19 12:40:01 PST 2014


It's about that time of year we start digressing, so here goes...

I had a small portable socket set I kept in my ocean going boat (I horde
and keep them everywhere I can). Anyway like everything exposed to the
ocean environment it got salt water in it and when I was cleaning out the
boat end of season I just set aside the rusty mess in the shop to deal with
this time of year. A couple months ago I opened it up and it was badly
rusted/crusted and I was wondering if it would be worth the time to wire
brush/dremel brush it clean or just get another set from harbor freight. I
knew it was not worth the time to connect all the electrodes to the various
parts of a 100 piece set so electrolysis was out.

I spied a plastic bottle of "The Works" on my shop shelf which is the
Dollar General/Big Lots version of "CLR", or calcium lime rust cleaner.

I mixed it about 1/3 part "the works" with 2/3 parts water in a plastic
tool box and dumped all the sockets, allen wrenches, ratchets, feeler
gauges etc in the mixture and closed the lid and set it aside. Life got in
the way and I forgot about it for about 3 weeks. When I opened the box and
started pulling out the sockets they were completely rust free! I rinsed
them all in the sink with an old toothbrush to remove the slime, dried them
on the woodstove and oiled them and they are good to go.

I poured off the liquid and saved it and have used it several times over to
de-rust other tools until it really seemed to stop working, then I poured
it out.

I just thought I'd throw that out there as it's only a couple bucks a pint
and will make a half gallon or so. If you have things you can wait on to be
de-rusted you may want to give it a try.

Warren



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