Using electrolysis to remove rust from blued item?

[peregrinvs]

I have a 1960 ROF Fazakerley made L2A1 magazine that I would like to remove some exterior rust patches from. Could someone confirm what type of finish they had and whether electrolysis would be a safe way to remove the rust? I assume a chemical/acid type rust remover is likely to damage the finish.

Thanks,
Mark

Information

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[no4mk1t]

Electrolysis can be used to remove rust from blued steel. Brake fluid too.


From John Schaefer's website.

Rust Removal
Brake Fluid
For rust removal, try automotive brake fluid. For light rust rub it on liberally with a patch, allow it to sit for a couple of minutes and wipe off. For heavily rusted items swab liberally with brake fluid and allow to sit over night. Burnish the finish with a wool pad or #0000 steel or bronze wool. Brake fluid may be damaging to some wood finishes so make sure you keep it on the metal.


Electrolysis Rust Removal



You can remove rust from metal using electrolysis, and it will not harm the bluing. The main advantage to this method is it gets all the rust in hard to reach places. You will need

A plastic container that will hold the part and electrolysis solution.
Steel rod. DO NOT USE STAINLESS STEEL AS THIS WILL PRODUCE HARMFUL BYPRODUCTS.
Water
Arm & Hammer Washing Soda (not baking soda. Washing soda can be found in your local grocery store with the laundry detergent. If you cannot find washing soda, pour some baking soda--sodium bicarbonate into a pan and heat it over low-medium heat. Water and carbon-dioxide will cook-off leaving washing soda-sodium carbonate. ) Another source is swimming pool "PH Increaser." which is labeled 100% sodium carbonate. [Thanks to Bob Head for this hint]
Battery charger or other high amperage power supply.

Cautions: Wear eye protection and rubber gloves when working with this solution is very alkaline and can cause irritation. The electrolysis process breaks down water into its component parts, hydrogen and oxygen, which can be explosive. Work outside or in a very well ventilated area. Be sure your battery charger/power supply is unplugged before attaching or touching the leads.
In the container, mix 1 tablespoon of washing soda for each gallon of water to make up your solution. Be sure the washing soda is thoroughly dissolved. Place a steel rod either through the part to be cleaned (use o-rings to prevent the part from touching the rod), or numerous rods around the inside of your container. Connect these rods with wire; these will be the anode. You must be sure that the part to be cleaned is not touching the rod(s). Suspend the part in the solution with steel cable or wire so that it makes a good electrical contact with the part; this will become the cathode. Connect the negative lead (black) to the part being cleaned, connect the positive (red) lead to the rod(s), then plug in the charger. You will immediately begin to see bubbles; this is hydrogen and oxygen as the water breaks down. Allow the part to "cook" for 3-4 hours. The time is dependent on the size of the part, amount of rust, and the current of the power supply. After you remove the part, immediately clean and dry it off, then coat it with a good quality gun oil or rust preventative oil.
Thanks to Roy Seifert for this tip
Roy reports that he used this process on a 1911 frame that had a lot of surface rust all throughout the inside. He set the frame upside down on wooden blocks in the electrolysis solution and placed a rod with o-rings through the magazine well. He used a 1.5 amp trickle charger and left it for about 4 hours. When finished, the frame was completely free of rust, and the bluing was intact.

[CrossedCannons]

Try it. Post before/after pictures of "rust" and "blue-ing"

The gases evolved under these conditions are oxygen and carbon dioxide, not hydrogen

[Patrick Chadwick]

Electrolysis turned this

Attachment 45195

into this

Attachment 45196

Your magazine will be no trouble at all. What are you waiting for?

[jmoore]

Patrick Chadwick had contributed to a long thread with a bunch of electrolysis info, complete with photos.

ETA:

https://www.milsurps.com/showthread.php?t=26384&page=4

Sort of starting with Post #37, but there's material gathering previous.

The whole thread if you want to stat at the beginning:

Argentino M1879 Rolling Block. Is it worth restoring?

[peregrinvs]

Thanks for all the input. A thought has since occurred...

Am I right in thinking that bluing is a controlled way of adding a layer of black oxide to the surface of the metal? If correct, why will electrolysis not remove this along with the red oxide (rust)?

Having said that, I'm not sure whether the finish on a British made FN-FAL magazine is bluing or a chemical finish like parkerising?

[Peter Laidler]

Better alternative Peregrine is to take your old rusty magazine to Dover and throw it off the white cliffs and I'll send you a new one for the cost of a stamp! Sounds fair to me!

[Patrick Chadwick]

I'll send you a new one for the cost of a stamp!

Peter, I'll take as many as you can send to Germany, and will be happy to pay the postage, if that is all they are going to cost.

But before emptying out your stores, perhaps you should know that a good Enfield magazine costs 35-45 euros over here, depending on how desperate the buyer is, so it would be a nice little earner for me!

[Patrick Chadwick]

Thanks for all the input. A thought has since occurred...

Am I right in thinking that bluing is a controlled way of adding a layer of black oxide to the surface of the metal?
If correct, why will electrolysis not remove this along with the red oxide (rust)?

Yes you are correct. Electrolytic cleaning of steel or iron actually converts the red rust to the black kind, which is basically the same as "bluing" or, less attractive, boiler scale. I am not going to stick my neck out and say which is ferric and which is ferrous oxide, since I never got it right at school, and the confusion persists to this day. And anyway, I found a detailed treatment of the topic of rust somewhere, somewhen, and just remember that it is a lot more complex than a simple pure oxide, there being apparently several mixed forms. So applying KISS, let's say it basically turns the red stuff into the black stuff.

Now the black stuff has a reduced volume, and the black layer of converted red rust is a soft layer of sludge, rather than the hard surface of bluing. Removing this sludge then reveals the clean(er) iron beneath. So electrolytic cleaning will make rusted-together parts easier to separate, especially if you follow up the electrolysis by a session in an ultrasonic cleaning bath, then back to electrolysis to get at the rust that was deeply buried beneath the sludge and so on repeatedly until you are satisfied with the result.

In fact, if you follow the tip provided by Jmoore, you may come across an example of mine, where I managed to clear out a rusted-solid ignition channel in an old muzzle-loader. I lost count of how many electrolysis/ultrasonic cycles it went through, just kept on going until the channel was clear. It was worth it - how many Anschütz muzzle-loaders have you seen?

[peregrinvs]

Better alternative Peregrine is to take your old rusty magazine to Dover and throw it off the white cliffs and I'll send you a new one for the cost of a stamp! Sounds fair to me!

A very generous offer, but Patrick would be a far more worthy recipient than I. I'm cleaning it up for fun - not because (other than a charger) I own anything that will connect to it.

Further developments... Digging around on the web suggested that the finish is suncorite over phosphate and not an oxide. My favoured cleaner is Deox-C which is a chelating rather than acidic rust remover. I have therefore stripped the magazine and put the spring plate into some to see if it attacks the finish. I shall leave it for 24 hours, but 2-3 hours on nothing nasty seems to be happening. Fingers crossed...