Ospho is my rust treatment of choice.
Some good canners gloves and some scrubbie sponges, after the wirewheel treatment. dip the scrubbie sponge in a container, or pu some ospho in a spray bottle, and get all rust/ bare metal wet.
Scrub, wait..
Once rust turns black, it is easy to hit that black with a wirehwheel, a then the black rust patches get smaller as grey etched pitteed steel grows.
This process can be repeated until there is no rust, just pitted steel. The final coat of opsho should have 24+ hours to do its thing, so the white powder forms and can be brushed off and acetoned.
I have fiberglass laminating epoxy. viscosity of warm honey. Clear.
One coat brushed or rolled atop Ospho prepped steel, will be as thick as 5 or 10 coats of paint, and dry stink free in 3 to 5 hours. Epoxy adhesion to properly prepped steel is impressive. it is much less porous than paint, or regular fiberglass resin, which is polyester resin.
Since i care about stopping rust and preventing its return as long as possible, as opposed to winning any bodywork awards, I now use epoxy as a basecoat/ primer, then paint that, if it is exposed to UV light.
Epoxy is also more flexible than polyester resin, in addition to its much higher bonding strength. I've had to replace missing steel with fiberglass. The properly prepped Osphoed, and mechanically toothed steel, has yet to release any epoxy saturated fiberglass, even with a sharp chisel trying to lift it off from the edge. I have to grind/ sand it off, if work adjacent to it is later required.
Ospho directions say just to apply twice, wait 24 hours , wipe the white flaky dust off, and cover with your favorite paint, but one can really take it much farther, remove more rust, and allow much higher adhesion of paint/primer, if they want to expend more effort.
What I like about Ospho, is I can get it on nearby paint, and while it might change the color slightly, it only damages/lifts the existing paint where rust has begun to form under the paint, helping one to eliminate future rust bubbles. |