The Ultimate HOMEMADE Rust Remover (Better than EvapoRust) 

Staying on a specific topic for longer than 30 seconds is a vanishing skill. But if someone has it, they can do it regardless.

he really is a fantastic presenter, which is even better given it isn't even his native language.

Hurrah! Thank you for giving him this compliment. It’s so well-deserved!

If only the current US president could do that.

@@ieetpeople4003 I hear they're looking for a new one!

How would you dispose of the used stuff?

what is the dish soap for?

@@Pocketfarmer1 Just put it down the drain. This is about as mild as you can get. You'd do more harm pouring some soda or orange juice.

I don't have anywhere near the same credentials, but with my BSc, I still feel that this is one of the best presentations I've seen on YT!!

@@p__jay It's mentioned on the video; it's used as a surfactant, to make sure that the solution better adheres to the metal.

I tried getting in touch with their customer support about two months ago. They didn't even bother to reply. I'm sure they'll regret that now.

@@beyond.ballistics They will likely take your formula to the USPTO. If you have an even better(secret) formula, and I bet you do, launch a brand yourself!

I’m sure their lawyers are working on a way to get the video taken down

are they serving citric acid at that morning meeting ?

There are many effective ways to remove rust. Evaporust isn't selling a rust remover as much as it is selling convenience and relative safety. Their market is not threatened by DIYers like us.

Not theoretical :D I got the ingredients today and immediately tried it. Works like an absolute charm at only a fraction of the price of commercial stuff.

I already buy citric acid in bulk (to make lemon super juice), and I had the washing soda on hand for electrolysis. This is a pretty big game changer for me, and I confirm it works very, very well.

To those of you who have made some, could you derust something and also add a bit of some other common metals like aluminum, copper, and brass to see if there is any corrosion to them?

Any acid will dissolve aluminium.

@@KC9UDX This is not acid.

It would even be possible to do it with the caliper still attached to the car, but not in its working position, of course

@@erik_dk842 I wouldn't risk weakening pins and piston rubber gaskets and brake fluid lines tho

might work for soaking but i made a batch and tried applying to rusty surfaces via spray bottle. doesn't do anything. naval jelly In the same area made the metal shiny.

@@JamesW-li5oi try soaking a towel with it and leaving it on the area you wish to clean. Place cling film or plastic over it to prevent the towel from drying out. I've seen that used with Evaporust.

@@EttoreB93 Nothing worse than driving through a few weeks of Northern salted winter roads

Great video, thanks! I have 2 questions! Is there any recommendations for after removing the parts from the bath, maybe to neutralize the process? And what will this do to paint? Thanks again, keep it up!

And considering how painstaking and laborious some of his restorations are I think it's fair to assume he is fuelled by a 50/50 mixture of strong coffee an stubbornness. So yes, our dude deserves the best beans!

Everyone deserves a bad coffee here and there. Makes the other ones taste better.

I wish him both sides of his pillow is cool and comfy

actually, I use similar approach to washi my coffee machine extract group, I was doing it intuitively but I guess was not very wrong 🤣🤣

Yeah, and it used to have no advertisements. They promised us there would never be advertisements, even once it would be sold and forever after. Lies!

@@michaellauinger7406 get premium or use an ad blocker

@projectfarm Check out this dirt cheap, effective, EvapoRust alternative! :D

He already knows the best.We blacksmiths for years have used one part acetone and one part ATF to loosen rusted nuts. I repair old cast iron skillets in my shop and use simple electrolitical method which is found on RU-vid also..

What's atf?​@@ericsprado4631

IKR!?

@@ericsprado4631 What is ATF? And how does acetone help in the process?

whats in that dish soap?

@@DeFlanko Dawn

Will the rust come back after a few days?

@@vananinurrizki3374 rust always comes back if you don't protect the metal.

@@PandaMan02 protected with what chemical compatibel?

It is, absolutely!

Agreed! I just found him and binged 3 videos filled with awesome info! Subscribed for sure!

The best after his main channel: www.youtube.com/@Backyard.Ballistics 😉

@@retro-mondo Self-explanatory 🙂👍🏼

Rust-oration😂😂

That's epic brother. I might try that. Got a large Headboard mesh for my hilux ute tray and it is absolutely Rusted to death.

Did the solution work on aluminium corrosion as well, or was it just for the bolts, which I assume were iron based metal and rusted in place?

@@judyofthewoods Exceptionally well, it left the metal looking quite literally like a new part

Absolutely well explained.

Agreed, it seems like this particular experimental process did his solution a potentially considerable disservice here. That said I suspect people would often leave parts in long after the rust has gone, perhaps leaving parts overnight to process so it's still relevant.

How often do you get things that have a uniform layer of rust tho? That's the real world issue you need to work around

Could he make his solution weaker and so slow his process down? Or is that a daft idea coming from someone with a zero understanding of chemistry!

thanks for letting us know you tried it out!

You're welcome

Same here! Rust is a horrible omnipresent thing for us. I think I heard there's an Evapo-Rust gel that can be applied to fixed structures which can't be bathed in it. How could we do the same to this solution?

@@MoritzvonSchweinitz maybe Methylcellulose /wallpaper paste?

@@MoritzvonSchweinitz fumed sillica Search youtube for How to thicken / gel phosphoric acid for rust removal

Your not gonna restore your tools you will simply eat them away you know that adjustable wrench with a dial that fits together nicely yeah if that dial corroded to a point where it falls out you don't have an adjustable wrench anymore you effectively made a paper weight

Waffle comment wasting my time

As a beginning gunsmith (waiting on FFL to process) I absolutely love learning from this guy's channel, Mark's channel, and many others. Best retirement career ever!

@@paulis7319 he makes extremely underrated content. He really deserves more views and subscriptions.

Agreed!

When I have used Evaporust, it took the zinc coating off...not sure about nickel.

In my experience it does that when underneath the coating lies rust.

Although I haven't tried that specifically, Nickel is a very chemically intert metal, and I wouldn't expect the citrate solution to do any harm against it. Not sure about zinc, that I'll have to try.

I used citric acid to remove zinc plating on bolts. I do not know if reaction with washing soda will change that. You might want to try some bolts to see

​@@desobrien3827 nickel is pretty damn resistant. Only way I see it taking that off is like how hard chrome comes off - the base steel has oxidized enough that when the rust is attacked, the plating no longer has anything to hold on to.

do you think it will be ok to pre make the solution and use it as needed? wasn't sure if it still worked after the initial reaction.

@@scott697070 I've used the first bucket full pretty much constantly for the last week, it seems to have slowed down a bit and turned a very dark green- almost back... Still works though. Id's suggest it will last, unused, for some time. Still, it's very cheap to make, so even if it does 'run out', dump it and make more...

I was thinking of my brake calipers the whole time I was watching this. I was also wondering if it would help or be safe in an ultrasonic cleaner.

I am also wanting to try this out on the water jacket of an engine, and see how it goes. I was going to use Oxalic Acid, or Evaporust, but now I am keen to try this formula

You might think about using electrolysis...I did this with great success on a large motorcycle tank. Used an iron pipe as the electrode with tape on it to prevent it shorting out (put it in the sender hole). Had to grind the rust off the pipe every night, and it took like a week...but it was basically free and did an excellent job.

@@scottclark7559 this is a monstrous 24 gallon tank. I did a Volvo engine block in a poly 55 gallon drum before and I agree- it works. This tank is impractically large for something like that

Booze Rooster, if you do try it, please post on your original comment what your results are. 👍

@Booze_Rooster The MC tank was from a Goldwing...10 gallons maybe? I just filled the tank with water and hooked one end of the battery charger to the tank, and put an iron pipe down the sender hole for the other electrode. I would think if would work fine with a bigger tank, but would probably take longer. The sender hole is probably a lot bigger though, so you could probably also drop a much bigger pipe inside.

Can this work on rust that cannot be dipped, but only sprayed?

That's very interesting, I'll read that. Thank you for suggesting.

A few details or link please.

@@murray4826 That's the exact title, it's searchable. RU-vid removes nearly all comments with links.

​@@scilojI've found that even posts with a URL spelled out as domain_name dot something will often be removed.

Jungbunzlauer ?

Multipurpose tea usage: Britishness confirmed.

If I'm reading this right, just throw some regular green tea bags into the mixture and let them steep and then...good to go? (sorry, I'm tea ignorant)

@@PaulHanak Honestly, not entirely sure. Industrial solutions use an extract which is purified to contain just the helpful compounds, but the other things in green tea, like tannins and other phytochemicals probably won’t cause issues in this application so yeah, definitely worth a go just trying it the way you said.

@@PaulHanak the more important question is whether to use Typhoo or PG Tips.

@@simontillson482 I have a litre batch of the recommended solution on the bench. I will split it and add 2x teabags to one half and use the other as a control. We will see if they can be differentiated.

that's absolutely fascinating. What are your thoughts on adding a small amount of TSP?

TSP?

@@shanonallen5395 trisodium phosphate, I think

How about the surfactant used in dishwashers?

Great video, I made up the solution as detailed using washing soda but I used an old bottle of Kodak Photo-Flo 200 which I had lying around from B&W film processing days as a surfactant. Photo-Flo is "...a wetting agent used to minimize water marks or streaks during film development. It is used after the final wash when processing films to decrease the water-surface tension and promote faster, more uniform drying." Does not contain perfumes or colorants like fabric softener or dish soap. Worked really well!

I started about 4 years ago working on shotguns and cheap iver johnson revolvers. I'm in the US so it may be different for you. But just jump into it with a cheapish, non collectable firearm as practice.

Electrolysis then acid, any acid eats rust!

Thank you for watching!

My thought exactly

Me too...

The first thing that popped into my head when I saw it was "Bren mag", before he even asked if we knew what gun it came from.

Wow! I know nothing of guns, really, but I like history and as part of that, view a lot of photos. I am the same with model airplane and aircraft recognition. When he dropped this magazine in the solution I found myself thinking “Bran”. The mind is an amazing thing!

Took a 303 bullet which was the same as the allied forces used in their rifles so the ammunition fitted both guns. The Bren gun could fire single shots so the enemy would think they were up against a rifle. Imagine their surprise to suddenly find it was machine gun. When I was a kid at high school in New Zealand we had an armoury with rifles (303) and a number of Bren guns. One afternoon we were up in the hills , not far from the school when a wild pig ran across the field. The guy on the Bren gun chased the pig with the bullets kicking up the dirt behind it. Was a bad day for the pig.

What's DOE?

@@disrespectful7862 Design of Experiments. It is a statistical technique to optimize a process. You start changing factors in a controlled way and/or with different levels and measure the effect in your target variable. Hope it clarified your question

Can this work on rust that cannot be dipped, but only sprayed?

@@IAmCraaiigg I don't think so. Probably adding some gelatin and applying it with a brush? That's the only thing I can think of.

My chemistry teacher always said, "do it like you oughter; add the acid to the water" so we'd remember. 50 years later, I still do.

Right, I make soap like you said, first adding lye to water, than add lye water to liquid oils and in the end adding other ingredients like citric acid.

Citric acid is a much weaker acid than hydrochloric or sulfuric where you need to worry about that. It is safe as he described. If you used washing soda or baking soda and didn't get bubbles regardless of mixing order, there is something wrong. Bubbles here are carbon dioxide from the base, rather than boiling water from heat from diluting strong acid.

Always do a test sample - there may be alloys this recipe might be too agrressive with.

*detailed, not derailed. Sorry.

Well, mostly right. Except there are two log scales that are used frequently, Base 10 logs and natural logs (Base e). e is an irrational number like pi and is approximately 2.71828. The pH scale uses the base 10 log scale where the pH value (ph 4, for example) means the concentration of acid is 1.0 x 10^(-4) = 0.0001 moles/L. "pH" comes from the German language form of negative log.

@steveh8724 yup you're right about natural logs, and natural logarithm is "ln" (pronounced 'lawn') Didn't know about the German origins of pH tho! Thanks 😺

You don't need a soda?

​@@disrespectful7862i use baking soda

I bet it was!

Nice… what’s your Source?

@@HermitFab evaporust MSDS maybe? not sure

@@HermitFab Much information can be gathered from the Safety Data Sheets, there are several for Evapo-rust (country specific I think) and some contain more information then others.

The German SDS has the ingredients listed and a percentage range for each ( not specific percentage) This is because, unlike USA, Australian and other HSE law the manufacturer cannot make vague claims as to the ingredients, even when the chemical is deemed to be safe.

So Evaporust is a mild acid. When in the video citric acid is mixed with washing soda, the bubbles tell that washing soda is neutralizing citric acid and make a gaz in the process. It still act faster as it's more acidic than evaporust. But if you want a less acidic solution, the best is still to put less citric acid (and you save some money not using washing soda). The second ingredient in evaporust is a corrosion inhibitor. If you want 5% citric acid like in evaporust, simply use 50g of citric acid per liter (that's the beauty of the metric system).

Wow, I would have never thought to see you here! Thank you for taking the time!

Turns out somebody already did back in 1995! After my "discovery" I researched the matter more in-depth and found a patent saying basically the same things that I'd found out

@@beyond.ballistics Yeah, there are so many humans now, it's easy to find 2 or more people having the same idea at the same time or finding someone beat you to it. I'm glad you still did your experiments and found a cheap rust remover for gunsmiths and maybe mechanics.

Automaticly if you have a video on the internet or any text describing the mix the no one can patent it later anyway 😉 You have to start the patent application before uploading the mix on internet (at least by my local laws for patents) i know this since i was about to apply for patent for a tool i made but it would cost at least 1000usd and it was not far from some other known tool so i didn't bother. It was a linked sliding hammer tool specifically for automotive oxygen sensor since on my old Audi RS4 B7 to change the wideband one everyone and the OEM manual says to drop the gearbox or whole engine and that is a 24H job, making the tool and replacing all 4 was 1.5 hours 😅😁

wait you have an audi? drop the money for the patent 😂

@@beyond.ballistics so it has expired (patents last for 20y)

If you tried it let me know! I might try it. Have an old trailer that needs painting. Gelatin, that is used in cooking is my thought, pretty neutral? I was thinking an old crockpot might work?🤷‍♀️👍

Wallpaper paste is the solution. It will gel it up quickly.

​@Travellerwiz Anwered the question which just popped into my head...how to make it into a gel! Thank you.

I'd love to see a test with the solution gelled up.

WHY ARE WE SHOUTING?

@@unclefista MUCH EASIER TO SEE LARGE TEXT THAT IS ALL. I AM NOT SHOUTING EVEN THOUGHT THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE SAYS I AM. CAN YOU FIND IT IN YOUR HEART TO FORGIVE ME ?? THANKS V

Please tell me you meant 2 kg of citric acid... 😮

@@rupertthomson Hahaha, woops, yeah, 2kg - backspaced a little to hard there :D I'll update my comment, thanks for pointing out my mistake!

@@pyramidsinegypt I'm glad it worked for you, my attempt failed miserably. I'll give it one more try...

@@rupertthomson For what it's worth: I measured 500ml of regular tapwater, added to that 50 grams of citric acid powder and stirred until it was all disolved. I then added 30 grams of the sodium carbonate (which in my case came in the form of 'silver soda'. The fizzing was immediate and lasted for around 10 seconds. I stirred it all again so that no solids were visible in the water. There will be some bubbles in the water but it'll be an all clear liquid. Do you want to share what happened during your first attempt?

@@pyramidsinegypt You know, I was wrong! It did work, I just didn't see it properly because I was lazy and just looking through the solution. When I took it out, it had indeed taken a lot of the rust off. I have just given the item a scrub and put it back in for another overnight soak. The item is a small steel wedge I found on an abandoned railway, it was covered in hard red rust, almost like it had been wrapped in sandpaper. It is mostly grey coloured now. I will try with some rusty bolts tomorrow. As for the mixing process, I mixed up the recipe for 1 litre of tap water (very soft here, not much in the way of dissolved minerals) using 100 g Citric acid and 63 g bicarbonate of soda, poured the water in and got the big fizzy reaction you described. When the fizzing stopped I mixed in a small squirt of fairy liquid (dishwashing liquid) as in the video. I added maybe 3 ml of it. The biggest lesson I have taken from this experiment is to properly examine the work rather than relying on a glancing look! Ha ha!

Yeah, YT's AI removes comments with many math formulas, symbols, odd syntax characters, as well as the names of some political parties, and references to any other smedia company.

It doesn't matter how many acid groups it has but what is an equation for the complete reaction calculated using atomic / particle mass. Then you have to take into consideration that those compounds are not chemically 100% grade and/or contain moisture. Best bet would be to do the theoretical reaction calculation and simply give a bit more of the soda compound just to be sure all citric acid reacted. And then the final sodium citrate has also so ions going on in the water solution so that itself is determining the PH. He could cheat a little making it a bit more diluted.. like erm 3 times, based on his experiment and then really we could tell which solution is doing more damage to the bare metal, that would really be more like an apple to apple comparison. Anyway the experiment is excellent besides this minor flaw and it looks like such a simple way to get unexpectedly awesome results and all that done in a shed not a lab 😅

@@DamianB82 It does matter how many groups it has. Believe me 1mol of citric acid needs 3 mol of NaOH to bind all acid groups on the citric acid - I have done this before. 40g of NaOH is 1mol, 100g citric acid is about 0,5mol, therefore you have reacted a bit more than half with the 30g or what it was, also the pH still being 4 is a pretty good sign there is still a lot of acid left. Due to the multiple carboxyl groups, each having their own ph at 3,4 and 6 if the pH is still 4 all of the strongest groups are filled but over all there are still some open, if the pH drops to 6 all pH4 groups are sated. EDIT: Oh and wiith the strong base NaOH you can't go fully neutral, it will always remain slightly acidic, with the weak bases you can (sodium carbonates). You can google "weak acid strong base titration" or "titration curve citric acid naoh" - it has been 20years since I've done this in the lab so I am not 100% on the details anymore to be honest but you could definately get a more neutral solution .

@@Snarlacc Ok, well I guess i didn't understand really what you had in mind with the 3 acid groups, thought you were to say that since that you need ratio of 3:1 by weight, which is not the case and while the neutral solution certainly need 3 parts of NaOH for one part of C₆H₈O₇, that doesn't mean you need 3 weight parts of caustic soda for 1 weight of citric acid :D It's 20 years since I've been doing those kind of calculations but I believe it should look something like this: C₆H₈O₇ + 3NaOH → Na₃C₆H₅O₇ + 3H₂O C₆H₈O₇ = 6x12+8x1+16x7 = 72+8+184 = 264 3NaOH = 3x(23+16+1) = 3x40 = 120 So basically the ratio for fully neutral reaction should be 264/120 = 2.2 So if he used 100g of citric acid (assuming anhydrous citric acid > 99) so to neutralize citric acid he should use ~45,45g of caustic soda (again assuming anhydrous >99%) But I believe this is not the expected outcome, since for this to work out sodium citrate is working here as an inhibitor to prevent further metal oxidation from happening, while the rest of the acid is eating up iron oxide (rust) which is easier to react in this environment. The real question is what is the optimal ratio for this, but knowing reaction of this whole process is beyond (rusted) knowledge, pun intended :).

@@DamianB82 Not neccessarily, like EDTA citrates are chelators, so this could work by skewing the dissolution konstant in the aqueous soloution by sequestering free iron ions to force more iron to dissolve and rust dissolves first. This does not depend on acidity, and it would take a lot more time like buffered EDTA solutions (in the hoours to days), but it would be a very soft process. That was my point, I have seen it doone with neutral EDTA on a rusty sword with a fine engraving, where it worked spectacularly, but the EDTA was also bedded in AGAR so it stays on instead of dipping the whole in aqueous solution because of the wood and brass on the hilt. Not depending on the acid but purely on its chelating properties. I have tried, abe even a totally neutralized solution will eat rust! - If very slow, but that also keeps the damage to a minimum. You are dividng atomic weight that's not how acid-base reactions are calculated, it's mol per mol per group (although the final carboxyl group dooes not really like to dissociate and it might not be exactly 3:1), and you have miscalculated for citric it's 192g/mol. My book says it's three times the amount of single value base to a 3 value acid.

That's definitely still an advantage, but the thing is if you're refinishing after de-rusting, you most likely will need to evolve at least a bit of hydrogen on the surface. That is true for phosphating primers, parkerizing, electroplating, and the pre-bluing etching. In all these cases the hydrogen coming from the citrate composition will be small compared to the finishing one. I'd still be careful with long soak times on high strength steel kept under load, like a loaded leaf spring.

I'm curious too, maybe xanthan gum, cornstarch, or guar gum would work.

A little googling indicates xanthan can handle acid solutions, for what that's worth

Citric acid is lemon juice and the soda's range from baking over washing to drain cleaner, so I dare to say it can be dumped in your household drain without worrying

@@erik_dk842 Thanks for the info, appreciated!

the actual weight of the rust that dissolves is almost equal to its own weight; for 100g of rust you need 100 grams of Trilon-b

I've seen people on forums suggesting adding urotropine to trilon-b solution for this exact purpose - corrosion inhibition. But I don't remember the exact concentrations

@@TRiToN219 Pure Trilon-b dissolves rust very quickly and absolutely.

ElementalMaker did some testing on an EvapoRust alternative and he settled on tetrasodium EDTA and citric acid. Na4EDTA is the same active ingredient for Trilon-B

@@MechTechMax EvapoRust IS EDTA, check datasheets. EDTA, Weight + 10% solution for 18-20C temp, cleaned old rusted horseshoe in about 10 hours to white metal without scrubbing.

Update your comment after you try it. I’m curious. I get myself in trouble sometimes with science experiments.😬

Okay, just looked up sodium nitrite and that's maybe not a nice chemical to use hehe