[Sca-cooks] Cleaning metal

[Saint Phlip]

Let me remind you that the bucket needs to be plastic or some other
type of insulating material. A metal bucket would be a problem ;-)

Oh, and btw, if you want to try the molasses method, surrounding the
bucket with some boric acid will take care of the ants without being a
danger to anything else.

On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 12:45 PM, Susan Fox <selene at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Thank you!  I have a cast iron mold with hearts that I would like to be able
> to use or at least to display.
>
> My contractor left a piece of rebar... I may snag that for my anode, there's
> a LOT of rust on this puppeh.
>
> Selene
>
> Saint Phlip wrote:
>>
>> All you do is make a salt water solution. Easiest way is to heat up
>> the water in a large pot on the stove, and keep adding salt until it
>> won't dissolve any more, let it cool, and pour the salty water into a
>> large bucket or other container.
>>
>> Then, you take the pieve of metal you want cleaned and attach it to
>> the negative clip on the battery charger, and a "sacrificial" piece of
>> steel (can be anything- a large nail?) to the other terminal, and
>> place both into the salty water, keeping as much distance as you can
>> between them- at least a few inches. Plug the charger in (you didn't
>> do this with the charger p[lugged in, "I trust?) and turn it onto
>> trickle charge and leave it alone for a few hours. After that time,
>> you should see the sacrificial piece getting stuff all over it, and,
>> depending on how rusty the work piece is, it should be cleaning up. If
>> the sacrificial piece starts looking clean, and the workpiece rustier,
>> you switched the terminals somehow, and you need to swap them in the
>> other direction (I have about a 50 50 chance of getting this right
>> because I can never remember which is which). Just leave it alone
>> until your work piece is as unrusty as you want it, shut it down, and
>> rinse the workpiece in hot water, then season it, if that's what you
>> intend to do.
>>
>> Now, if you're talking cookware, and it was REALLY rusty, there may be
>> some pitting in the metal. Seasoning, seasoning, and reseasoning will
>> eventually give you a smooth surface, but until the seasoning takes,
>> there's not much else you can do because it's the rust that ate those
>> pits out, not the treatment.
>>
>> On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 12:24 PM, Susan Fox <selene at earthlink.net> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Um, yeah.  I just moved into a new house which is blissfully ant-free,
>>> I'm
>>> not all that keen to try this method.
>>> I would like a pointer to the one with the battery charger however.
>>>
>>> Selene
>
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-- 
Saint Phlip

Heat it up
Hit it hard
Repent as necessary.

Priorities:

It's the smith who makes the tools, not the tools which make the smith.

.I never wanted to see anybody die, but there are a few obituary
notices I have read with pleasure. -Clarence Darrow