Quote:
Originally Posted by beery
Hi Catkins,
That's great work on the PSU.
How were you able to get to the point of being able to polish the chassis? Was the rust only a thin film without any pitting?
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Hi Andy,
I used Hammerite Rust Remover gel to get off the rust and most of the corrosion. That will typically bring it back to clean metal (with repeated applications if it is quite thick and fine wire-wool or a tooth brush) but it will be quite dark or stained. I then repeatedly polish with Auto-Sol metal polish. With enough effort it will produce a good result.
As to thin film or pitting is concerned, it was a mixed-bag. Some parts had only a thin film, the most exposed parts had some areas of pitting, and some parts were somewhere in the middle (perhaps 45%, 40%, 15%). After removal of corrosion the difference is some parts will be smooth but stained (surface corrosion), some parts will be rough (the corrosion has started to eat into the plating), and some parts will be pitted (the corrosion has bitten a bit deeper).
This may sound obvious, but, the condition and plating quality determines how much re-polishing you can do. Rough finish can usually be polished back to a good finish without going through the plating, and much pitting can be polished out to a certain extent. It all depends on how thick or good the plating originally was.
This is why I mentioned I found it to be heavy metalwork with a good level of plating. Due to this I found the corrosion (even in the more exposed places) hadn't yet destroyed the plating, and to my surprise, it was possible to get back to a good finish. In other circumstances corrosion has ended up going back to the bare metal with no plating remaining (that was the case for much of the metalwork in the Murphy A56V, which is why I ended up replating it).