Thread: Questions about rust removal

I tend to get interested in things and jump in with both feet, only to lose interest later on. This happened with straight razors. I bought a few dozen from ebay and locally a few years ago, got a bunch of stuff to do cleanup and restoration, then stuck everything in storage bins. I'm finally getting it all back out and seeing that there is a lot of staining on most of the blades. Some look great. Some have active red rust and are probably toast.
I want to probably just sell them off as a lot or something and let someone who's better at restoration than I am have a go. I was thinking it'd be nice to get them as clean as possible first. Is there a recommended method for bulk stain/rust removal? I recently found out about evapo-rust, and wondered if I could just soak the razors in that for a while or something. Is there a more-recommended product?

Thanks,
Graig

Evaporust would not be a good avenue to take. Some good old wet dry sandpaper and elbow grease is what I would use.

I would start with a course emery cloth and work up to a find wet/dry sand paper.

if you are not going to go all the way I would say just scrape the active rust off with a razor blade and call it good

If you can throw up some pics, that would be good....but really, I don't think there are any short cuts, especially with the number of blades you're talking about
and the varying conditions they're in. Don't forget the SRP classifieds either. Sounds like a job lot in need of MUCH work.

Spray with WD40, scrape off with a razorblade get a plastic holder at Home Depot, saves the fingers, scrub with 000 steel wool. You can do a razor in a few minutes.

A bit more WD40 and steel wool will remove most of the tarnish, a bit of metal polish will remove even more. Wet & Dry and or a buffer with greasless if you want it all gone.

A razorblade & WD40 will stop the rust.

More importantly why are they rusting? Is one of your Celluloid scales decomposing?

If you're just going to get rid of them, leave them as is.

That way a potential buyer see what he gets, if you start to clean them you 1. May make more damage than already exists. 2. They may look better in pics than real life, and a buyer (assuming you sell on ebay or similar) might come back at you.

I know I would prefer seeing (and recieving them) in the real condition if I was buying them, and not partially cleaned in the wrong way.