More rust removal

October 9, 2012

Following up the previous post, I looked into the different ways of cleaning off the rust from the anvil. Looking at Isaac’s idea first, I found a couple of good articles explaining the process.

Instructables has a few articles but Andrew Westcott’s article on electrolytic rust removal was more thorough, and I have most of the things needed to build the constant current supply he mentions.

I also looked at getting some abrasive powders. There are a couple of artist suppliers who provide those.

Cornelissen and Lawrence

I also looked at sandblasters. These are relatively cheap but you would also need a compressor that I don’t have. However Badger make one that is powered with aerosol cans. I don’t know how good that is but having previously used disposable gas with my welder, I can imagine that it would get expensive quite quickly.

Before ordering off the net, I thought I’d look in a few shops. Cassarts recommended I check Robert Dyas for either the abrasive powder or a sandblaster. I did so and instead found a bottle of rust removal chemicals from HG that I thought would be worth a try.

I also bought a large plastic box which was just long enough to fit the anvil. It was a little shallow so I kept turning it over to ensure that the base was suitably treated. The bottle does not say what’s in it but recommends rubber gloves.

You can see from the photos that the tiny bubbles forming on the metal surface, so you can see it working on the rust.

After a quick brush down, I gave the anvil about 2 hours in the tank. It looked like not much had been happening in that it was still a brown rust colour. However when it was washed and rubbed dry all that rust came off leaving the very good results.

Here’s the before.

And the after.

Looking at the cross section, it’s got to have been made from a rail track as the middle is quite thin and you can see how the bick has notches in the bottom where there was not quite enough metal to form a round.

By Andy from Workshopshed 4 Comments

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