[Sca-cooks] Cleaning metal

[Saint Phlip]

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
>
>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Saint Phlip" <phlip at 99main.com>
>> To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
>> Sent: Wednesday, September 17, 2008 10:33 AM
>> Subject: [Sca-cooks] Cleaning metal
>>
>>
>>> After the discussion we had here recently about cleaning up cast iron
>>> and other steel objects, some of my mundane smithing friends started
>>> discussing another technique which should work well for those of you
>>> nervous about playing with the electrolysis method (battery charger)
>>> and who aren't in a hurry.
>>>
>>> Basicly, you take a bucket, and you fill it with 1 molasses to 10
>>> water, and let the metal soak in that for a couple of weeks.
>>> Apparently, it cleans the metal up well, and at the end of the time,
>>> all you need is some minor scrubbing to finish it up.
>>>
>>> Now, I've never used this method, so I can't swear to it from personal
>>> experience, but several of the guys I respect most on that particular
>>> List swore by it. I figure it's certainly work a try, and will likely
>>> be trying it on a project of mine in the next month or so.
>
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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