yes roger I have posted about a product here previously I have used called petseal it maybe is the same stuff, absolute rubbish, must have cost me £100s to get out of my tanks, and petseal were not interested, andrew
email (option): warbikes@gmale.cum, think about this !
I've sealed quite a few tanks over the years, with some failures and some good results. Overall, a product called "Red Kote" seems to work very well in metal tanks even if they are a bit rough inside. Gotta watch out for puddling though.
The best out there is Caswell sealant. More expensive and does require a clean tank. Caswell is the only sealer for fiberglass tanks that actually works. Both these products are sound even with 20% ethanol fuels.
To de-rust the interior of a gas tank, Evaporust is fantastic (and re-usable).
email (option): cas.vanderwoude@gmail.com
A good way to de-rust a tank is to break a toughened glass side window from a car door, put the glass into the tank along with a little bit of white spirit then shake it or wrap it up in a duvet making sure it can't move and place it in a cement mixer for a while. The white spirit just gives a solution for the rust dust to be suspended in to enable easy emptying of the residue. It can be reused over and over just rinse it off and put it back in. To get rid of any remaining rust put acid patio cleaner in there and leave it for a short while then rinse it out and neutralise it with a bicarbonate of soda mixture, finally if you won't be using it for a while you can get a de-watering solution to put in there.
email (option): davmax@ntlworld.com
petseal themselves sell a solvent that disolves their own product, perhaps an admission that its crap. the only stuff ive used that has succeded is por15, i bought the full kit from frosts with the cleaner and primer in it. i did my triumph 18 months ago and its still perfect now.
email (option): johnrregan@yahoo.co.uk
I also did the inside of my tank with POR15 and I swear by it. It's a perfect silver color, tough as nails and is still just like the day I put it in. A friend of mine has done it to his tank a few years ago and has had no trouble with it whatsoever. Comes with the cleaner and the paint, all instructions etc...
Ditto regarding the POR15. I've done two Willys jeep tanks and a DUKW tank without any problems. I will use it again for sure.
i did my tank on a hot sunny day so the sealant had enough heat to set, and i spent a long time cleaning the tank out prior to putting the sealer in. this may be why its done such a solid job, but i will certainly be using it again.
email (option): johnrregan@yahoo.co.uk
tank sealer - the devils brew!
Luckily one of the good items on my 3HW is the tank - however it is red rusty inside and I wanted to try and remove it.
Which got me looking at EVAPO-RUST which then led onto this forum on model engineer website concerning rust and its removal - I have edited it but otherwise as publish, sorry about its length, SOME INTRESTING IDEAS:
These days, for a light infestation of the rust bug, I prefer the de-rusting stuff sold by ArcEuroTrade, it's thick and sticky rather than liquid, and its applied with a nylon scouring pad, so no danger of scratching the metal underneath.
Have found my Arc catalogue, its called "Restore Rust Remover Gel" A bit pricy at £14.50 for 250 ml, but it goes a long way because it can't drip off.
Hope this helps
Dunk it in malt vinegar for a week or so. Take it out, scrub it clean, rinse and dry.
This is what I do,
Method one for larger items:
Plastic container (Bucket Box etc.) with
A gallon or so of water
A cupful of Sodium Carbonate (Washing Soda)
Battery Charger
My Plastic box has a piece of lead sheet halfway around it connected to the battery charger positive electrode and then you connect the item you want to de-rust to the negative electrode/terminal.
You can see after a very few minutes the rust fizzing off the surface, it's a non destructive process but if the rust on your item is "heavily pitted" then once it's gone there will be craters.
Method two for smaller bits:
Citric acid powder from my local Indian Foodstore
Pan of boiling water
Simply immerse your item and boil until the corrosion is gone.
With both processes un-rusted metal is not affected in any way and unlike using abrasives it leaves no scratch marks.
(Something for the health & safety lot: Both processes produce hazardous gasses)
Lots of info on the net about it the battery charger method seems popular with home shop restorers me included.
Milkstone Cleaner from Agricultural suppliers, it's largely phosphoric acid. Follow the given instructions.
The name of the rust remover is Phospheric Acid and comes in small containers mixed into a jelly, sometimes a liquid which does not stick to the job.
A trade name is 'Naval Jelly'.
Apply and leave for a while and it will eat away any rust, remove with hot water.
A friend who collects old tools got a tip from someone who buys rusty old tools at boot sales - he fills a bucket with them , then tops it up with cheap and cheerful 'value' coke.
Try a mix of Molasses and water ( half and half) in a plastic bucket with a lid.
Environmentally friendly and the rust still hasn't come back after 15 years
Phosphoric acid whilst doing a good job has to be treated with care because the fumes causes everything else to go rusty.
Stick a tub of this in the workshop overnight and you'll know all about it.
I did some experiments a while ago on a related subject that had good side effects on rust removal.
I get some plates cut at the laser cutters in 200 at a time in 4mm, 5mm and 6mm thick steel. The plate laser cutters use is made for lasers and has a shiny black coating that stops splatter and damage to the lens.
Unfortunately this oxide coating damages the webs on the small drill used on these jobs and drill breakage is an issue. The answer has been to surface grind the top face before drilling but the oxide coat clogs the wheel and wear now becomes an issue with wheels costing £80 each. So the answer has been to send them out for Lumsden grinding at 50p per side which soon adds up plus a 3 hour round trip.
After asking advise and trying things out I found that Patio and brick cleaner is 90% hydrochloric acid, not 90 % proof. If you place these plates in for 24 hours they come out with a grey sheradised finish on them and no oxide, also works on any black steel like angle etc.
Leaving in longer doesn't do anything unto wards. The solution / fumes does not affect machines, I have had a big 5 gallon tub of this on the floor for months parked at the side of two dividing heads and 3 vises, none have discoloured.
Now the spin off, seeing as how it cleaned steel up I tried it on a rusty piece of metal, to whit a tap I found jammed in the base of an old cupboard this was absolutely red rust and to be honest it was scrap.
Left in for 2 days and when it came out it had the sheradised finish, was perfectly clean and when you rubbed you finger on the cutting edge it was sharp !!
Amazingly the sized etched on the shank stood out like chrome.
Since tried other makes and found the most cost effective is one from a big box builders merchants called Selco at about £5 for a gallon which you mix with water about 4:1
It's not a nasty chemical you can put your hands in it just for putting bits in and out but best to wear gloves. to dispose of it you just throw it on the patio and wash down the drain, after all that's what it was made for.
Trick is to look at the label in the big box stores, it needs to say "Contains Hydrochloric Acid" steer clear of anything that says green.
John,
Are you sure you haven't got that arris-about-face?
In the experience of most folk (me included) Hydrochloric acid fumes will rust anything in the same building in short order. So will fumes from a common salt hardening crucible. Phosphoric acid, in contrast, is relatively benign. Indeed, I've had a plastic dustbin full of (originally) 10% phosphoric acid in the workshop with a fish tank aerator in it for the last three weeks, evaporating the excess water so I can put it into a smaller container. it hasn't caused any corrosion problems at all.
On the other substances, Evapo-rust, molasses and to a lesser extent, citric acid, act as chelating agents. They will capture the iron oxide molecules and float them off. Gentle scrubbing with a wire brush every day will help the process.
Hydrochloric and phosphoric acid will both reduce the iron oxide, but both will also dissolve iron as well.
Electrolytic cleaning with sodium carbonate (washing soda) as an electrolyte will reduce the ferric oxide (rust) to black ferrous oxide, making it easy to brush off. Eventually, it'll reduce the ferrous oxide too.
Having tried all these methods, I'm currently a convert to diluted molasses, I hauled a milling machine table out of a 12"x56" pool of it in the workshop yesterday after two weeks of soaking. It's a lot slower than the other methods, but it seems to do the job very well. Makes the shed smell interesting too
Only made the comment of Phosphoric acid from what I have read as I have never used it personally but I'm on my 3rd gallon, diluted to about 12 gallons of patio cleaner and the label clearly says Hydrochloric acid.
I saw the old tap I did the other day , tomorrow I'll put a picture up, it really surprised me, pity I didn't have a before picture but it was just a red lump. If I hadn't dropped it in the solution as an experiment I would have just binned it.
I only posted this as an aside on rust removal, for me it's main claim to fame id removing the black oxide off steel which it does in 24 hours and no special gear like the electrolysis method.
Aldi was selling 400ml phosphoric acid washing machine descaler (Kilrock. Big W).
I checked with the manufacturer and it is 25% phosphoric acid plus fragrance.
As regards it affect on iron I put a file in the acid solution and forgot about it for a few days.
I now have a very small useless file
Well, after several attempts with the caustic soda/electrolytic method (and very little success), I decided to give the Hydrochloric acid method a go. Quick trip to the local builders yard, parted wit £6 for 5 Litres of high strength brick cleaner and I have, in an afternoon, de-rusted an old 12" 4 jaw chuck which I acquired some time ago. One of the jaws has freed up so a little more soaking in the HCl and I think I may have rescued a doorstop.
BTW, this stuff absolutely stinks, make sure you use it outside or in a well ventilated area.
I'm going out tomorrow to buy another 5L and a bigger container so I can get the whole chuck immersed. I'll let you all know what the results are, (wish I'd taken a before pic now).
The solution I bought is 18% HCl and seems to be very effective with no dilution.
I just use cheap "white vinegar" from the supermarket - about AU$1 per litre. One day for light rust, two or more for heavy and mill scale. Reused until the acetic acid weakens.
BTW, the acid in Coka Cola is Phosphoric acid.
Does the vinegar etch into the metal or just dissolve the rust?
It turns rust into a kind of goo which scrubs off by hand(I wear marigolds), metal itself is unaffected.
I've dunked cast iron and steel parts up to 2 weeks in it, too busy or lazy to take it out.
Buy 10 litres for about a fiver at tesco kinda thing and fill a bucket up with it.
Big long flat bits like my topslides were done in a gardening tray.
Cover parts 100% to keep any oxygen away.
One old calibrated dial came out lovely, while its brother was too worn to be useful, any pitting is also exposed.
A quick scrub with a stiff plastic brush tells you the extent of penetration.
All those old guffy pultra parts in my album got done this way.
Rinse with water, dry thoroughly with paper towels, then I oil it all over to protect it.
It doesn't seem to evaporate completely either, I've had half a bucketful sitting in my garage for 6 months so far.
It IS an acid so I presume even vinegar will literally eat any metal which is left too long in the solution.
The big advantage is you can take your time with it and get a good result.
Just check the progress daily, top up any evaporation on longer jobs with more vinegar.
Saves a LOT of effort where rust is concerned, seems to be very effective, and is safe.
It also eventually eats your marigolds
Interesting topic. Typically I have used the battery charger/electrolysis method for derusting which has been very successful on old woodworking tools and a somewhat mistreated drill chuck (teenage son left it out in the rain for weeks!).
Some points :-
1. I found electrolysis is SLOW (hours/days, not minutes) larger the lump, longer the time, but effective, and while there may be some pitting where the rust has been, there is no loss of metal otherwise.
2. Thoroughly dry and coat the item (I use WD40) as soon as you take it out of the bath. The surface is now very, very clean (i.e. no protection AT ALL) and prone to corrosion.
3. Dispose of the residual gunk carefully, rumour has it that it can contain some nasties (such as chrome) .
email (option): GINANTONIK@TISCALI.CO.UK
Used the PO15 on my Welbike, its not weeped since
also worth remembering that any corrosive treatments like acid will attack different metals differently. whilst they may eat rust off steel, some metal alloys will be affected differently, for instance, some compounds of brass when attacked corrosively can have the zinc in them eaten away leaving them looking simila to their original appearance, but they can go porous, and become very brittle.
email (option): johnrregan@yahoo.co.uk
I posted the overly long comments about corrosion treatments as it just about covered everything i've heard of + some others.
As early tank sealer was a thickened Polyester resin and more modern sealers epoxy resin (various types with different chemical resistance), any coating need a good, clean, corrosion free surface, before anything will stick to it.
Hence the stuff about corrsion treatments.
As i said, i have a tank which (so far) does'nt leak but has surface rust inside, i wanted something i could swill around inside it, and kill the rust.
I was looking at the Phosporic/acetic/Citric/hydrochloric acid option.
I did wonder particularly about Brick Cleaner, as i have gallons of the stuff - must admit that when i got round to reading what its active ingredients where i was surprised - Hydrochloric acid ..... hmmm.
I will give it a try, keeping an eye on things and keeping it away from non ferrous objects ... need to get something neutralise first - some nice drain cleaner should do (stand well back!) - better make that milk or something else!