2aHawaii
General Topics => General Discussion => Topic started by: Tom_G on August 16, 2011, 09:11:17 PM
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Any of you guys done this yourselves?
I have 2 friends, both of whom share my passion for old guns, who have made derusting tanks. The results stagger the imagination! And, at least on a conceptual level, it is simple. Water, baking soda, an old DC charger of some sort (I have a drawer full of these), a scrap of iron and a bit of wire.
You can do a quick Google search on the topic, and find endless discussions, diagrams, and videos. Here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDkpFfU0aDE#) is a video that's fairly succinct, if a bit hammy.
I plan to make a small one and try it out on a pair of cast iron grates for my grill. My gunsmith buddy has my m1917 so he can do the bore with his super-sized rig. I mean, after all, we don't all have room for a tank 4' cubed!
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I've done this to remove rust on old tools and car parts. The process does work, but you need to be aware of pitting that might be under the rust and possible brittling of the part. Be sure to heat treat anything you plan to shoot.
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I've done this to remove rust on old tools and car parts. The process does work, but you need to be aware of pitting that might be under the rust and possible brittling of the part. Be sure to heat treat anything you plan to shoot.
Does this work on your brain? I have a snorkel....
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I've done this to remove rust on old tools and car parts. The process does work, but you need to be aware of pitting that might be under the rust and possible brittling of the part. Be sure to heat treat anything you plan to shoot.
Does this work on your brain? I have a snorkel....
I've got a snorkel, too, but my brain is already too brittle!
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I've done this to remove rust on old tools and car parts. The process does work, but you need to be aware of pitting that might be under the rust and possible brittling of the part. Be sure to heat treat anything you plan to shoot.
Does this work on your brain? I have a snorkel....
I've got a snorkel, too, but my brain is already too brittle!
Coug. I have done this for jeep parts...never thought about using it for firearms. I agree on the brittle part....my brain hurts tonight, but in my defense, I did just watch the whole presidential bus motorcade thing (2million for a freaking bus).
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Haha, yeah, i saw on the news a guy called in and said, "It looks like the death star. Instead of getting off the bus and kissing babies, I keep expecting him to look at the baby and say, "Luke, I am your father." There were some other pretty colorful descriptions of the bus, I wish I could remember them.
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Kiddie pool will work.
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Does this work on your brain? I have a snorkel....
No rust in or on my noggin'. Might be all the CLP absorbed through my hands. :thumbsup:
Coug. I have done this for jeep parts...never thought about using it for firearms. I agree on the brittle part....my brain hurts tonight, but in my defense, I did just watch the whole presidential bus motorcade thing (2million for a freaking bus).
So...you're "that guy" who keeps jacking the parts I need from the junkyard!? ;D It does work amazingly well.
Kiddie pool will work.
Never thought to try that. The biggest set up I've done was with a plastic 55 gal drum. I suppose someone could do the same for a rifle barrel.
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My son tried it on small parts and loves the method. However, his process involved sodium carbonate (washing soda), not sodium bicarbonate (baking soda).
Baking soda, sodium bicarbonate = NaHCO3
Washing soda, sodium carbonate = Na2CO3
The references I've seen seem to prefer washing soda, but I can't see that it would make much difference. The idea is to get monatomic hydrogen onto the cathode (negative, the part to be de-rusted) so that it will reduce the iron oxide to iron particles and water.
With washing soda, (Na2CO3), two sodium ions will plate out on the part, but will immediately react with the water in the bath to form monatomic hydrogen and sodium hydroxide. (Na + H2O > NaOH + H.)
With baking soda, (NaHCO3) both a sodium ion and a hydrogen will plate out, the hydrogen being monatomic, and the sodium immediately reacting with the water in the bath (as noted above), to form monatomic hydrogen anyhow.
Monatomic: A single hydrogen atom, like many gases, will immediately react with another single hydrogen atom nearby to form H2... in the same way that oxygen forms O2 and chlorine forms Cl2.
But if you can get the hydrogen in its initial state, as a single hydrogen atom all by itself, H, it will be far more reactive than in its H2 state, where it has already reacted with itself. That's the "monatomic" state.
This higher reactivity is common to most monatomic gases (which don't last long, since there's usually another monatomic atom nearby to react with immediately).
As an example, when hydrogen peroxide, H2O2, decomposes into water (H2O) and a single O, oxygen, that monatomic oxygen is very reactive and will oxidize almost anything (like a germ) immediatly. That's why hydrogen peroxide is so valuably as a germ-killer. You will see it fizz when you put it on a wound --most things, like blood and tissue, decompose it pretty quickly. (However by the time you see it forming bubbles, it has already formed up as O2.)
"Plating out": In solutions like of baking soda or washing soda, the sodium is ionized as Na+, having broken away from the (-HCO3) or (-CO3) parts. Water breaks stuff apart like that a lot, and it's called "ionization." So the positive sodium ion drifts toward the negative electrode (cathode) and when it contacts the cathode, it picks up a negative electron and voila! becomes neutralized and turns into an actual metallic atom of sodium. (As noted, it then reacts with water in the solution to form hydrogen, which escapes as bubbles.)
This is the plating process and is the way chrome or copper is plated onto other things, if you have the right baths and voltages and whatnot.
Hydrogen is actually a sort of metal (except with a really, really low boiling point) and "plates out" in the same way. Except that at ordinary temperatures, it just rapidly forms H2 bubbles instead of sticking to the cathode.
Terry, 230RN
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I've had great results just soaking in vinegar or oxcyllic acid (wood bleach) for a few days.