Whelp, did my best at doing science this afternoon. Most of it worked out well...
Muriatic acid bath to remove mill scale from a bunch of various squarebody frame/suspension parts.
Pretty simple process.. equal parts acid & water, soak for a half hour, nuetralize in a bucket of water filled with baking soda, final spray with the hose.
Stuff strips off mill scale like nobody's business...
Black crap is scale.. just falls right off.. quickly too.. picture was taken about 5 minutes after submersion.
Now.. I could of *sworn* that the people who make corroseal say it still works on bare steel.. so after I cleaned up my shackles I started slapping them with corroseal..
It really doesn't work at all
Everywhere it's BLACK... the corroseal has done it's work. That finish is TOUGH.. a wire wheel in a drill won't phase it
in the least bit after it's cured for 24 hours. However... As you can see.... It's real spotty as to where it worked and where it didn't. Bummer.
Now... Gotta figure out my next steps. Everywhere it DIDNT turn black is gonna be covered in what's essentially a clear layer of latex by this time tomorrow... So that'll need to be stripped... But wherever it's black... That shit'll probably on there forever.
I can either strip, clean, buy some self etching primer, and then have a whole 'nother process to do that'll take the better part of an afternoon..
Ooorrrrr.... And this method is rather French (but it'll work!) .... I can strip it all the latex.. spray everything with a mixture of peroxide, vinegar, and salt to purposely cause it to rust.. corroseal it.. and then paint it.
The French method saves me money on primer.. it saves me from having to acid bath everything again (as everything I bathed but didn't corroseal is most likely gonna be covered in flash by tomorrow morning), saves me a few bucks on more isopropyl to wipe everything down again.. AND the time that takes.. and considering I've already bought the damn corroseal and opened it... I gotta use it within 6 months or it'll be past it's shelf life and be no good
I wouldn't be happy with just self etching primer either honestly.. id probably pony up the bucks for the 2k cans that have hardener in them... And they ain't cheap. Plus I'm on a deadline to get this frame back together.. can't really be waiting for cans of primer to get shipped..
Looks like I'm gonna have to channel my inner Pierre... Or Emmanuel... If I go the Emmanuel route I could probably find myself an ancient fishdog of a wife while I'm at it
guys named Emmanuel are seemingly really good at that.
