Thread: CLR and the light touch

G’day all,
Ok now I have read some bad & not so bad reports about using Calicium, Lime & Rust remover (CLR) on Str8s,
I agree I would not use this on a any new or already polished steel, nore would I soak it unattended for any long periods.

But I thought I would give it try as more of a active rust loosener than a cleaner as such.

I have a W&B wedge with what I will call a very heavy patina & some crusty black rust, but no red active rust.

Blade as received



my process so far
first I did an initial 3000 grit foam clean up and scraped the crusty rust with a stanley blade
doesn’t look to be any major pitting
so did a light 2000 grit W&D paper bevel check on my glass lapping plate
found the spine & bevel look good with no pitting geometry isued I could see

as the blade still had a fair wack of black rust etc I gave it a soak for a couple of days in WD40 to try penitrate the rust to no real benefit as the rust was not loose but hard like the steel

after initial clean up & checks



now the CLR
I soaked the blade in CLR turning it over & moving it around every few minutes

after a couple of minutes you can see it is working & bubbling away so I would flip it over & move it around so it didn’t sit stagnent in the liquid.


after about half an hour or so I removed the blade & rinsed it off with running water.
some of the rust started rubbing off with my hands only
then once thouroughly rinsed & cleaned, I gave it a light clean for about 5 minutes in total with wet 800 grit W&D the rust & scale nearly fell off the blade with very little effort required



so I will conclude that CLR may not be good for clean steel or Patina only removal,
it may not remove the rust as such, as the liquid was lucky to have changed colour with material removed,
but for early restoration with heavy rust & scale removal it really helps to loosen the rust & scale so sanding is removing the rust not the steel also at the same time.

I will give the blade a second soak tonight for a similar time if I get the chance & give it another light sand to see if the finish can be improved on before I get serious with the W&D

Tried for a 2nd soak of about 20-30 minutes but it didn't seem to help much this time as most of the scaley material was already removed, and it started to just darken the blade so removed and cleaned and left it at that for this blade.

Forgot I left my old pointy nose pliers with rather heavy patina in the CLR for about 24hrs after the str8 to see how it went.
Well definitely removed the patina & turned the pliers mill scale grey, now not sure if the pitting was there before I put them in the juice but sure was afterwards so I definitely would not recommend any long term soaking of anything you want to keep in CLR

If you want to stop the rust especially in a pitted razor, Evaporust from Harbor Freight works well and quickly. It is non-toxic, water soluble and can be reused.

Evaporust will stop the rust, but fine steel wool 000 and 0000 and WD40 will get the surface tarnish off quickly. There are several post on it here.

Using a single edge razor blade to cut off most of the rust first will save you a lot of time.

After the steel wool put it on the buffers or hand sanding and polish to make it shine.