Surface rust tricks

[Brettly-2008]

Put a brand new steel floor in a trailer earlier in the year and deliberately left it outside during winter knowing it would surface rust. Now I have to deal with it. Any of-the-shelf products (Bunnings etc) people recommend that neutralises and-or covers fine surface rust?

Thanks in advance.

 

[ephect]

Fish oil works well.. Can you not just sand/wirewheel it off then prime it?

 

[Calaber]

Cleaning surface rust needs to ensure that the deepest corrosion points are cleaned. Priming over any untreated surface rust will simply lead to rust creep under the primer.

Any rust converters as sold at Bunnings can be effective as the first treatment after removal of as much surface corrosion as possible. Paint remaining rust spots with converter. Wipe excess off clean steel after drying then prime and topcoat.

 

[Brettly-2008]

Cheers fellas, it's really quite gentle surface with no pitting so was hoping some product out there could wipe it out and seal all in one. I think I'll give it sand and prime just to get it looking new again for inspection.

 

[gossie]

It's no good sanding and priming it if you don't get EVERY speck of rust out of it. Any rust of any size left with continue to grow.......Rust never sleeps.

I would suggest wash the whole lot with phosphoric acid to kill the rust......Leave it soak until the rust's been eaten, then hose it out in the hot sun to dry then prime, undercoat and finish coat it.

It all depends how good you want the finish to be.........Good finish is all in the preparation.

 

[WazzaVN]

Hey Brett gossie and calaber are on the money. I have dealt with allot of rust at work and you simply have to remove it all.

I would recommend you sand it with something coarse like 80 grit first. A grinding disk like 24 grit wouldn't hurt if you have it available. Keep going till its all Clean. After you've done that there will still be little rust pits. The best tool for this is a wire wheel. They can be expensive but you can get smaller drill bit ones that can go in your power drill. I highly recommend this over a wire brush because the brush just won't get it all. Keep going till you don't see any little brown pits anymore. Then you can go over it again with some sandpaper to remove all the grinds and scratches.

Next you can give it a hit with some scotch brite and phosphoric acid as Gossie said (more commonly know as Deoxidine) then wash with water and dry it in the sun or with an air blower. You can use rust converter which is acid based too but these steps are just extra precautions. The first steps I said are the most important.

Lastly use an acid etch primer to seal it all off but don't wait too long. Just a couple of hours after you clean it is long enough for it to start developing again. Especially with the broken surface it has after all the sanding and stuff.

Good luck man should be alright.

 

[Brettly-2008]

Haha, cheers fellas. All that might be bit overkill for a trailer but I'll take it all on board

 

[WazzaVN]

Oh yeah didn't really read your first post properly. Yeah if it's just a trailer floor the paint will get scratched off anyway aye? Lol. Just give it a good scuff maybe use some deoxidine and hit it with your primer and paint. Good luck with it all man.