Homeowner Forum / Cleaning / April 2005

In alt.home.cleaning on 26 Mar 2005 18:43:19 -0800 aaronep@pacbell.net
posted:

Well naval jelly is sold for the removal of rust.  I've used it years
ago.

With furniture and some other stuff, restoration is discouraged and
deprives the item of antique value.  I don't know if this applies to a
stapler or not, or if you care or not.

The oldest thing I own is a pistol ball mold, a model used from 1820
to 1850 iirc to make pistol balls.  It's exactly like the one that
used to be on the glossy brochure they gave out at the home of John
Quincy Adams, which is all the more remarkable, because I bought the
mold accidentally with a big bunch of modern hand tools at a yard sale
on my way to JQA's house.  An incredible coincidence.

But I bring the topic up because as old as it is, it's only worth 10
dollars.

Is the stapler painted or chromed?  If not, what I do most of the time
to clean rust off of metal is use an electric wire brush, on one side
of a grinder, with a grind stone on the other side.

It won't leave a gleaming shine, or for the most part any shine at
all, but other than that, it does a great job very quickly.  Wear
goggles, and until you get the hang of it, wear gloves I guess.

Some things that in the past didn't even bother me, that looked pretty
good, I now wirebrush because I know they will look better.  Rusty
screwdriver shanks, putty knife blades, knife blades, hammer heads,
metal jack stands that got wet and rusted near the bottom, pliers jaws
and handles, key rings, wood screws and cabinet hinges that were
damaged by toilet bowl cleaner vapor.  All of these looked good or
great after they were done.  The last two especially I thought were so
damaged I'd need to look for new ones, or get them from my neighbors
when they got knew cabinets, but mine looked great after 3 or 5
minutes of brushing (2 hinges, 10 screws.)  Lots of other things.

Meirman
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