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I am trying to wear out my ultrasonic cleaner. Where has this been all my life.

The question came up if you could use something like Evapo-Rust in it.

Since my tank would take like $75 to fill and it loses its efficiency over time I came up with a trial solution. Also I didn’t want to dilute or have to remove my normal cleaning solution

I had my kick shackle apart and decided to use the dogbone as a trial.

I turned the heat up to 140 degrees, put the part in a ziploc bag, covered it with clean Evapo-Rust, sealed it, put it in the tank and turned it on.

I ran it thru 4-5 30 minute cycles for about a day and here is what it looked like verses the rest of the kick shackle.

It looks like I should have left it in a little longer, but the part came out very clean, unlike the slime you have to wash off on straight E-R soaked parts. So it would appear the UC waves with penetrate the bag and activate the solution in it.

I took the used solution and dumped it into a bucket so I can derust parts that won’t fit into the cleaner until the E-R efficiency is used up.

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That's correct that you can use a ziploc bag in the ultrasonic. In the dental field that is done routinely to clean dental appliances without contaminating the rest of the solution. Put the appliance in the bag with some dedicated cleaner, seal it off and hang it from the side of the ultrasonic. Works great every time.

Nice result on your part!

-Kevin

You can filter the evapo through a shop rag to remove all the junk. I reused it until it was basically black in color.

What an interesting idea! For comparison, you could try putting a similar part into a sealed bag of Evapo-Rust for the same time without using the ultrasonic machine. That will indicate whether the ultrasonic actually helped or if the Evapo-Rust alone did the work.

Big Kev,

Thanks for the filter idea. I bought my wife a wonderful chinois strainer she never uses. Maybe it has found a new use.

Bill

I’m sure we all have a cache of red stuff to get rid of, so thanks for starting this thread. I’m currently a fan of Evapo-Rust purely for the simplicity of use, but it takes quite a while to finish the job. Perhaps those that use an electrolysis process can fill-in some details on that method.

I do had a question about the ZipLoc bag technique, “Is the top of the bag sealed and also held above the normal cleaning fluid level, or once sealed the top of the bag is allowed to go wherever it wants to go?” Kevin’s comment suggests the top of the sealed plastic bag is held above the waterline.

dp

In dentistry we seal the bag and clip it by the top (the seal out of the water) to the side of the ultrasonic bath. The vibrations in the fluid pass right through the bag and vibrate the cleaner in the bag the same as if there were no bag. We do it this way to prevent any possible cross contamination.

Same concept should work for cleaning parts. Clipping the bag to the side will prevent failure of the seal and your evapo-rust escaping into the rest of the tank.

-Kevin

I just tried a product called Acid Magic

certol.com/acidmagichome/

I had a part that didn't respond well to Evapo-rust so I put it in a bag with this Acid Magic at 140 degrees and it was derusted in a couple hours with the UC on 30 min cycles every hour or so.

Phosphoric acid would be my choice. I use it all the time.

so I'm a little late
But I use (Vinegar) for rust removal.
Even on some large parts.
just soak the piece in vinegar and wait a day or
two. take out of the solution, rinse, if there is stil
rust, just dip it in again.
For large pieces, I soak old thin rags
in the vinegar, then place on the rusted area.
Then I place plastic over it as a vapor barrier.
I did the roof of my 74 dart this way
inside rim, the splash shield, fender skirts.
At $2.64 a gal. that is cheap rust removal..
Do not use on any type of spring.
Best