Weird thing with vinegar and tool
 

OK here's the deal. I dropped my cordless screwdriver in the grass while installing a sprinkler system rain sensor on my house. My neighbor brought it over to me a couple weeks later because he found it while mowing the grass. It was a little dirty but I wiped it off and it survived. The bit was OK but a little rusty, so I put the bit in a jar of vinegar to dissolve the rust. I forgot it for about 2 weeks. This is what it looked like, the clear vinegar had changed to very murky brown and was working it's way into rough blob form so it could eventually climb out of the container and come after me just like in the movie. I took the bit out, and wiped it off. It had kept all it's dimensions and even kept the CHINA engraving, but had changed color and shrunk in size significantly. The Phillips end is a little eaten away, but everything else is there, but smaller. Here it is shown next to an unaltered bit of the same type and original size. I'm finding it hard to believe. I'm gonna miss that bit.

Re: Weird thing with vinegar and tool
 

That looks pretty nasty! Use Evapo-Rust or molasses to remove rust.

Re: Weird thing with vinegar and tool
 

No. Soaking in vinegar is actually a very good and non-toxic way to kill rust and get back to clean metal. It truly does work. I don't know what the heck happened here. But I also have no idea what that Chinese metal actually is. Must be some odd concoction they came up with. I know my experience with a lot of Chinese metal has shown it's inferior crap

Re: Weird thing with vinegar and tool
 

thats crazy!!!!

Re: Weird thing with vinegar and tool
 

Hmmm. Lead, cadmium, melamine? Ain't no telling. But you can leave a part in Evapo-Rust a long time and it'll still be there when you come back. Molasses, I'm not sure about.

Re: Weird thing with vinegar and tool
 

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It was in the Vinegar too long and it ate it up. I did that with a brass cattle tag and it almost ate it up too. I only leave parts in White Vinegar for 3 or 4 hours, then take it out. I use a small stainless wire brush & water on small parts and my pressure washer on the big stuff.

Here is a thread I posted about cleaning parts with Vinegar....

https://www.67-72chevytrucks.com/vbo...d.php?t=807107

LockDoc

Re: Weird thing with vinegar and tool
 

Not as long as I did..:).. when I ran across the old Ford Monkey Wrench that I put in a container of Evapo-Rust you couldn't hardly recognize what it was. It was 3 times worse than it was when I put it in there. I ended up putting it in with the scrap metal.

LockDoc

Re: Weird thing with vinegar and tool
 

OK, like anything else, too much of a good thing...:lol:

I did get the impression that it was buffered somehow so that it wouldn't do what happened to your monkey wrench. The youtube videos show those busty gals sticking their well-manicured fingers into the stuff and not having problems. Maybe I was looking at the wrong area on the screen. :lol:

Re: Weird thing with vinegar and tool
 

Pretty amazing how uniformly that bit was reduced. Literally shrunken down. Let's hope those Evaporust gals don't get any on their wonderfulness

Re: Weird thing with vinegar and tool
 

Maybe their fingers are shrunken down into talons, now. Time for some research!

Re: Weird thing with vinegar and tool
 

Any tips on rust removal on the backside of a chrome bumper? Front looks great but back is crusty pitted along whole backside
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Re: Weird thing with vinegar and tool
 

I agree with special-k on this.... We just put a new steam pipe kit on my sons
LS engine. It came with "stainless" bolts. The 2nd one he installed broke inside
the head with 5lbs of torque. We attempted to drill etc it out but was so hard
the only bit that would touch it was a carbide step bit.
We replaced all of them with grade 8 cap screws. No more CHINESEUM for me!
Hard to say what the heck they are really made of.

Re: Weird thing with vinegar and tool
 

Timely thread. I'll throw another solution into the mix: phosphoric acid. Gregski and I have been trading information about it. More correctly, I have been trading questions for answers. I happened into some free hand tools that I wanted to clean up without ruining the chrome. It appears the common thread here is to not leave something in the rust eater for too long.

Re: Weird thing with vinegar and tool
 

Steel wool and WD-40 can knock the rust down without scratching or removing the chrome.

Re: Weird thing with vinegar and tool
 

I was on my Harley at a stop light and the trucker next to me told me rubbing aluminum foil will remove rust on chrome without harming the chrome. I have yet to try it. He was commenting on the chrome but there was no rust. Not sure why it came up. Just making conversation at a traffic light. Beats hearing about his hemorrhoids :lol:

Re: Weird thing with vinegar and tool
 

Citric Acid mixed with water in a kiddie pool will remove the rust and not harm the chrome. It takes up to a couple days depending on the mix ratio and the amount of rust and may take some agitation of the rust mid process. Neutralize the part with baking soda and water mix when done.

The nice thing about this process is you can dump the mixture down the drain when done. If concerned with that throw some baking soda into it to neutralize before pouring down the drain.

I learned this process on an old school BMX site where it is used to clean up severely rusted chrome bike frames. I’ve used it several times with great results including the back of a rusty bumper.

Re: Weird thing with vinegar and tool
 

Great to know that. I knew citric acid is a great natural cleanser. I have a Fuji Finest 10spd from '73 that is chrome-moly with the frame lugs, fork and frame ends, and sections on the frame tubes exposed and polished. I wonder what it would do for that. I'll try that before going deeper into it

Re: Weird thing with vinegar and tool
 

I was surprised how well the aluminum foil and water trick worked on one of the old hubcaps that was on my truck when I bought it. It's not completely perfect because I didn't want to damage the paint that was left. The aluminum foil takes the paint off easily

Re: Weird thing with vinegar and tool
 

White vin is excellent for removing rust. As Tim says who knows what kind of metals made up that bit, but IMO, 2 weeks is 13 days too long for a bit no matter how it's made.

Re: Weird thing with vinegar and tool
 

its acid, it attacks/eats the surface. the part hasnt shrunk, its just had an equal amount taken off every surface, including inside the engraving.

which is actually an interesting way to think of shrinking something I guess, a method that changes the mass at the same time as the size (which IN REVERSE is why we have acrobatic flying quadcopters but not quadcopters that can carry humans, changing the size up changes the mass up too)

but it would only work for homogeneous materals though, something that had different material as the acid eroded it would not have the same result, if for example you put your finger in there for a week you might lose the epidermis and maybe the dermis too! it woulndt look like a smaller finger.