[Adler]

The other day I was working on two guns. First was the Garand I bought from a fellow gunatic and the other my Beretta 1951. Well if you need to remove rust, bluing, or Parkerizing I found a great all purpose metal cleaner.

50% Muriatic Acid
50% Water

Muriatic Acid is purchased easily at most hardware stores for about 4 bucks a gallon and is just diluted hydrochloric acid. But it sure scked all the dirt out of the Beretta after I blasted it as well as some rust I missed when it was in the cabinet. When I went to rust blue it, it took very very well. All I used was some 000 steel wool to scrub with.

As for the Garand.......she came out nice and pretty. I have some parts I want to polish but she will soon be ready for refinishing. I used a couple old nonmetallic brushes for this to get in all the nooks and carnnies.

Just remember to wear good gloves and goggles cause when you open up the containers the acid smokes. Its still pretty potent and you do not want it splashing on you.

 

[fatcat]

Wow, great idea! I have always tossed parts in the blasting cabinet and almost always missed parts with it or the parst fly around it inside...

How long should it be in there and I would think it would pit the metal a little bit.

 

[Adler]

Dont soak it, just work it around. I imagine if you dilute it more it could be a soaker solution, but I would try it on some screws or someting to see if it pits the metal or not. The Garand came out shiny. I just have some machining marks to polish out.

 

[Adler]

BTW....I checked the stuff I used and its 38% Hydropchloric Acid. Pretty much all other rust removers like Naval Jelly are acid based so as long as you watch your work it should not etch. My stuff when diluted was only 19% acid and took about 20 minutes for the hangun but longer for the Garand since I was using a 5 gallon bucket and had to keep basting the piece.

 

[fatcat]

What type of material to do you blast with?

 

[Adler]

I used Aluminum Oxide

 

[techwrtr2]

What about using glass beads? Blasting cabinet I have access to has glass beads in it.

 

[Adler]

They work as well and I have used them before. Just make sure you test a piece of metal in it before to see how much it roughs the metal up. Some glass beads can really make a rough surface. When I used it, it was really old material so it was really fine.