how to clean rust off of nuts and bolts

This is a degree 8 bolt, quatern inches long, one column inch viscous, successful in the USA by Nucor Fastener. It has a formed strength of 150,000 Pounds per square inch -- cured over double the strength of a "common" grade 2 bolt with no markings on the straits. It as wel has a history; those chisel marks on the head tell apart me a narration of a long 24-hour interval, a torch, a broken cheater taproo, a cold chisel, a hefty hammer, very much of cussing, and, finally, a gifted mechanical WHO not only knew how to break IT regular, but had the self-control not to throw the scrimpy fuckin' thing as far as he could into the weeds when helium in conclusion got it unstylish. I never knew that guy, because I bought information technology from his estate sale, along with fifteen more gallons of similar ironware. I wear't know him, but I've illustrious plenty like him, including my own father.

There's some erosion markings on the run out head and some rough spots on the threads, that I couldn't hear subordinate the original coating of rusting. Until I find and clean a matching nut, I South Korean won't know for in for if the bolt still threads. A purist power prefer a new one, simply a man World Health Organization needs a good hard grade 8 bolt this sized might decide to reach information technology work. Specially considering that a new replacement of this grade/quality testament toll you fifteen bucks if you're buying in retail quantities. At the tractor dealership, you would chisel in a new bolt and bill the node for top-nick perfectionist function. In your own shop, well, it depends.

Anyway, this is an old thread just the problem of bulk computer hardware cleansing persists. What really got me thinking about it again was the collateral trouble of rusty tool restoration. I didn't work in the shop some during the epidemic, because the biggest risk of forced exposure to the virus where I am is/was a chance encounter with the cops in a traffic stop over. None of those guys were wearing masks or respecting social distancing. So, until we got vaccinated, we weren't doing optional/frivolous drive errands, and the shop I wager in is ten minutes away. Didn't matter indeed much, because I wasn't doing garage sales either, so I didn't have the constant influx of "new" goodies to flirt with and neaten. But now I do again.

I never time-tested an electrolysis experiment like we discussed higher in the thread. No matter how you set it ascending, you're generating potentially explosive gasses (oxygen and hydrogen) at the electrodes. It's easy to ventilate the risk down to virtually nothing, but in/neighbouring a borrowed shop it's not my place to be creating even tiny risks that are avoidable. And so that line of experimentation remains for when I find my own buy at space.

By chance I came across some videos of vibratory tumblers being used to clean rusty hardware. This was #6 on my list of approaches in the original post worst year:

Dan Boone wrote:
6) Bulk vibratory abrasion methods. Similar to above simply using a commercial vibratory dry cleaner vessel that just shakes, without tumbling. Forever with a purchased abrasive medium, sometimes with added liquid. Noisy, usually requires an dear purposeful superpowe tool, aforesaid to give up pretty good results.

There's an almost-standard vibratory tumblr out there that comes in two sizes (small and bigger) from a motle of sources; it looks to me like on that point's one evenhandedly expensive made-in-USA product (from Eastwood) and a whole bunch up of copycat versions made in China and sold at places like Harbor Freight. All the copycats May live from the same mill with different brand name calling on them, as is common with Chinese-origin tools. The timber is aforesaid to be lesser.

What I noninheritable from my recent plenty of video-observation is that using these tumblers to clean rusty parts requires many technique. YouTube is rotund of unboxing-type videos where somebody gets the new flirt, turns it connected, dumps in the dry walnut-shell media (really for polishing) that comes free with the unit, throws in some rusty bolts, runs information technology for a dyad hours, pulls tabu the notwithstandin-disappointingly-rusty bolts, and says some reading of "well, they're wagerer, North Korean won't need as much metre on the wire wheel, I was hoping for more".

Then, likewise, a good deal of those guys are restoring classic cars. They preceptor't just want "enough rusty remote so that the togs work again" -- they want mirror-finished bolts, every speck of chromatic and paint and original coating removed, so they give the sack send their ironware intent on be electroplated. Vibratory tumbling can get you a long distance closer to that, but my research suggests IT commode't get you all the way there. You still need a wire roll Beaver State sandblasting whole step, and if you're gonna do that anyway, what did the tumbler very gain you?

Me, I sporty want entirely the crusty rust gone. I don't do projects that count on hardware with perfect finishes.

Contempt all the disappointed-newbie videos, a some -- very few! -- shop guys have videos that go further, experimenting with different tumbling media and especially with adding liquid (usually water) and grievous bodily harm (dish antenna detergent or Ensiform Unripened almost commonly). That makes the project a great deal messier! Simply dust-unconfined, so probably very much safer.

The consensus seems to be that "the greens media" -- basically, hard plastic triangles impregnated with secret abrasives -- is the best stuff for rusty bolts/tools, but it has to be run lactating to be effective. Downsides: the gormandise is hideously expensive ($8-$10 per pound, and at the five-to-extraordinary recommended ratio of media to dirty ironware, you need 12-15 pounds to do a rich incumbrance in the bigger-sized 18lb-capacity tumbler) and worse withal, it's relatively soft, so it wears out fairly quickly. (How galore batches? Nobody will quite say, but non all that many a.) This would not employment for me; beyond the expense, I am put dispatch by the wastefulness of it. I ask a penny-wise media or none of this makes sentiency for me.

The second-best suggestion: "heavy media" such as ceramic triangles, cubes, and spheres, and/or tiny stainless steel pins (or old screws!) or good mature-intentional washed river gravel (some enounce, sand). Always run wet, always run with soap. Of path the unblemished steel pins and fancy instrumentation shapes are at the least as valuable, when bought by the pound as tumbling media, as the plastic pyramids.

Because the heavy media is heavy, you can't really put enough of it in an 18lb-capacity tumblr to physically fill up IT As much as is needful. So there are diverse strategies for adding "bulking" media that is non so hard, only serious enough to be useful, and such lighter per volume. Small hardwood shapes, a variety of plastic pellets, the glass beads used in sandblasting cabinets, even oddball stuff like ivory chunks or the little cubes of tempered glaze over that you fix when you shatter a tempered-glaze control panel.

The deeper I got into the explore, the more I kept hearing that, for the specified project of rusty bolts and tools, multifariousness in the tumbling media was the cardinal, along with the soapy water. Lots of antithetic materials in all different sizes and shapes, the more the merrier. As the softer items grind down into junk/mud, wash them out with lots of cleanse water (a pail and projection screen is suggested) and supersede them with larger items, indeed you always have a spectrum of size and varying textures.

And as for me? I am service department-sale-man! I behind buy an endless amount of ugly ceramic tchotchkes for to a lesser degree a dollar a pound, and do the world a favor by pounding them into "a diversity of sizes and shapes". I can "create" tempered-glass cubes or itsy-bitsy hardwood shapes. This was start to dependable more promising. (I could also start endless small collections of plastic beads of various kinds for nearly atomic number 102 money, but I'm rattling non fascinated in using pliant media; manufacturing a microplastics waste stream is not my idea of a socially-functional upcycling.)

So, later on all this enquiry, I got IT in my chief that I really wouldn't idea trying impermissible one of these moving tumblers. And then serendipity! A side hustle paid off unexpectedly and I tense with a couple hundred extra bucks in my mad-money business relationship. Was gonna go to Harbor Freight but my amazing online-shopper better half found a Chinese-branded reading (near certainly identical) happening Amazon for thirty bucks less. Took a week to get delivered, but it arrived yesterday:

As yet, I put on't have whatsoever "light" media. And -- potential hitch -- the instructions with my unit discourage that exploitation heavy media can "untimely" wear stunned the pliant bowl. Clean warned, I am. But (a) bowling ball replacements are pronto available; and (b) I am pretty sure I can fabricate a better bowl out of a steel sens if the break issues raise too severe.

For media, I did order two pounds of the big-ticket small mixing of ceramic shapes, clean to get me started. Plus I had a four-hammer jounce of nicely washed and pre-grouped tiny river stones from, maybe, a volumed-corner store garden center.

American Samoa for instrumentation tchotchkes, they come in varying degrees of hardness; harder (porcelain) is better, whereas the thicker stuff is often a softer stoneware with a good glaze. I'm no expert, only I spent seventy-five cents last weekend at various garage sales picking out unloved and unlovable porcelain-looking for ceramic items. The chipped mark was the real heavy-porcelain deal; far harder than the buddha incense bearer (?) Oregon the tramp candlestick, and preferably problematical to smash up.

In all, the media I threw in weighed about eight pounds, of my 18-lb weight budget. Throw in a pint of water, I'm at 9 pounds. Five pounds of rusty junk leaves room for up to four pounds of lighter media once I source any. Click the pic if you deprivation to see the rusty crusts in high-stepping-res horrifying glory:

So, as my mother's dinero formula begins, "into the bowlful, dump..." It apace became clear that the factual finishing instrument didn't really tantrum; it was big to get over submerged in the limited volume of media. So I took it right noncurrent out. Added the pint of water and a slosh of Simple Light-green. Started upward the unit.

This all happened nowadays. I ran the tumbler for two hours. Maybe one day I'll leave it running unattended; information technology is noisy. Only every bit for now, I don't desire information technology not to vibrate off its mesa onto the floor, or not to disassemble itself from all the shaking. So I settled for a two hour test. It's my expectation that really challenging items may need to go for 8-12 hours, but bolt threads might suffer and get peened all over from a run so long. I necessary to look inside after two hours, for science; and I requisite to crack home anyway. Clock to look:

And you know what? My excessively rusty computer hardware is manifestly not done. Simply the extent of rust removal, especially on the rib items, is AMAZING! I am ridiculously pleased. I truly can't look to see what yearner runs do for some of those rustiest pieces.

I was besides entertained that 2 hours was enough to take all the razor-sharp edges off my porcelain shards, so it was harmless to rummage through the media with my manpower to remember my stuff. I was not sure how long that would take.

There are several rinky-DINK "features" to this tumbler. It has a debilitate hose that has nothing at the inside-the-sports stadium terminate of the fitting (ilk a screen?) to keep small media from vibrating down into the drain hose and lodging against the clamp. The independent handwheels (modern formative fly-nut equivalents) that drive in everything together are prone to unscrewing themselves under shakiness, and deman more robust lockwashers (which I have). The gaskets between the bowl and the lid are not cured-attached (non sessile at all, actually) to either the pipe bowl Oregon the lid, so they retain flopping around and need to be secured with gum-like. Nestlin annoyances, only the mark of a tool either not-well-designed or that's been visited by the building block-cost-reduction suck-fairy.

That aforesaid, I like my new toy/indulgence. I think that if I indulg it with great care, I can use it to easily clean big batches of hardware. I will, of of course, report backrest as experiences gather.