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Thread: Rust ?

  1. #1
    Join Date
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    Thumbs up Rust ?

    Hi Guys,

    BobL, you might be particularly interested in this post.

    As some of you will recall I spend some time wandering around in the local scrap yard among various other places, and pick up some interesting and often useful items. I posted some pictures recently of some items I obtained, among them these...

    03-07-2019-002.JPG
    They are a set of number stamps in a wooden holder. Based on the age of the tin of other bits that were with them, I would estimate that these are early post war, 1946 ish. As you can see, they are quite rusty having been out in the weather, but they don't look to have been heavily used. The stamp size as near as I can guess is 6 mm and the cross section is just less than 8 mm. They are approximately 45 mm long.

    I did say in the earlier post that I was going to try and de-rust them.

    09-07-2019_01.jpg 09-07-2019_02.JPG 09-07-2019_03.JPG
    I happened to have one of those yellow squeeze bottles of natural Lemon Juice that you can buy for 30 pence or so from the supermarket and an empty 250 ml drink bottle. So in they went along with the lemon juice. There was just enough to cover them. A good shake and left in the sun for the day and overnight. Another good shake the following morning and you couldn't see the stamps because of the very dark brown of the liquid. Another good shake and left in the sun for the rest of the day.

    By tea time, the stamps had been in the liquid for about 24 hours, the lemon juice had become very dark and looked to have lots of debris in it so I emptied it out and washed the stamps in warm water, and gave them a scrub with a nail brush. That first picture is how they came out. Just a few dark spots, but absolutely no trace of rust at all. Even the numbers cleaned up nicely.

    A wipe with an oily rag and this is the result. I'm quite pleased with them.
    I didn't have any number stamps before, but I have now.
    Best Regards:
    Baron J.

  2. #2
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    They came out well John, I might have to throw out my electrolysis bath.

    Phil

  3. #3
    BobL is offline Member: Blue and white apron brigade
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    I like it!

    You don't mention your dilution factor but pure lemon juice contains about 5% by weight of citric acid (C6H2O7 ) so if you diluted it by say a factor of 5 then you would own to ~1%
    Anyway I am not surprised it worked even at that dilution given the length of exposure time.
    Next time you could try using a bit more juice.
    One really useful thing about using citric acid is it won't attack the underlying steel.

    I've been using a 10% by weight solution of citric acid crystals in water and for the level of rust I can see on your pieces, in the warm sun it would take about a hour to de-rust them.
    A 10% solution really makes a big difference when delisting heavily scaled surfaces.

    Cost wise it's dirt cheap. A kilogram of food grade (high purity) citric acid crystals can be purchased on ebay for about $15 so to make up a 10% solution 100g is required per litre.
    100g is going to cost $1.50 but the solution can be used repeatedly many times.
    Just let the rusty bits settle and decant the clear liquid off the top.
    In case you are unaware regular Lemon juice contains other stuff so it can go off after a number of uses.

    FWIW actual lemons cost between 50c and $1 etc in our local supermarkets. Our neighbour has a lime tree than when in season drops a couple of limes a week over THE fence which we pick up and they are much appreciated by SWMBO in her daily G&T.

  4. #4
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    I use citric acid now for all my brass/copper pickling after silver brazing operations. Much nice than 98% sulfuric acid that I used to dilute to use and works just as well.
    Cheers Jim
    My Youtube Channel -
    Blue Heeler's Model & Toy Steam Engine Room

  5. #5
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    Don't think that would work to well here as our Sun makes things hot., they might melt in the heat.

  6. #6
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    Hi Bob, Guys,

    I didn't dilute it at all, there was only just enough "Natural Lemon Juice" in the bottle to cover the punches.

    If I can rescue the bottle from the bin I'll photograph it.

    Those punches were too good to dismiss.
    Best Regards:
    Baron J.

  7. #7
    BobL is offline Member: Blue and white apron brigade
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    Quote Originally Posted by BaronJ View Post
    Hi Bob, Guys,

    I didn't dilute it at all, there was only just enough "Natural Lemon Juice" in the bottle to cover the punches.

    If I can rescue the bottle from the bin I'll photograph it.

    Those punches were too good to dismiss.
    If you didn't dilute it then I am surprised it took as log as it did. Maybe there's something in the natural juice that slows things down a bit?

  8. #8
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    A good reason to keep watering the lemon tree, that is my job as the missus won't do it.

    White vinegar works well also.

    cheers, shed

  9. #9
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    Hi Bob, Guys,

    Quote Originally Posted by BobL View Post
    If you didn't dilute it then I am surprised it took as long as it did. Maybe there's something in the natural juice that slows things down a bit?
    I was too late to rescue the old lemon juice bottle, but the wife, bless her cotton socks, had another one hidden away from my grubby fingers.


    10-07-2019_006.jpg 10-07-2019_005.JPG
    I took pictures of the back and front of the bottle, I didn't see anything about the strength. This is apparently of Italian origin.
    Best Regards:
    Baron J.

  10. #10
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    Italian lemons. Don’t they call them Fiats?
    Chris

  11. #11
    BobL is offline Member: Blue and white apron brigade
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    Thanks for the pictures BJ

    I see by the ingredients that it was reconstituted juice with an added preservative so the strength could be anything, but being Italian, my guess would less than original.
    It also contains a preservative/anti fungicidal of meta bisulphite, which is incidentally also used to preserve wine, and etch steel before micro analysis.
    This also supports what i said about natural lemon juice going off which would affect its longevity of use for rust removal.

    Screen Shot 2019-07-11 at 6.03.58 am.png

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