Hi to all,
I have noticed that most people who try to remove rust from metal equipment use mainly oxalic acid. Last week I found an old cartridge from a shotgun which had become a rusty piece of junk. After some research I found that any acid would do the job (however, strong acids seem to destroy the "healthy" metal as well) so I decided to try a really mild one which is citric acid. Citric acid is a natural ingredient of many fruits (e.g. lemons) and they also add it to beverages to make them a little bitter and to dozens of cleaning products. Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of the cartridge before, cause I couldn't image how efficient it would be but after leaving the cartridge in a solution of about 15% w/v citric acid for 12 hours almost 95% of the rust was gone (it precipitated at the bottom of the tube) and I could see the clean metal. I just though I would share this with you in case you want to use something which relatively not-toxic (although I am not sure if it is easy to buy pure citric acid easily).
Have a great night/day
I have noticed that most people who try to remove rust from metal equipment use mainly oxalic acid. Last week I found an old cartridge from a shotgun which had become a rusty piece of junk. After some research I found that any acid would do the job (however, strong acids seem to destroy the "healthy" metal as well) so I decided to try a really mild one which is citric acid. Citric acid is a natural ingredient of many fruits (e.g. lemons) and they also add it to beverages to make them a little bitter and to dozens of cleaning products. Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of the cartridge before, cause I couldn't image how efficient it would be but after leaving the cartridge in a solution of about 15% w/v citric acid for 12 hours almost 95% of the rust was gone (it precipitated at the bottom of the tube) and I could see the clean metal. I just though I would share this with you in case you want to use something which relatively not-toxic (although I am not sure if it is easy to buy pure citric acid easily).
Have a great night/day
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