Looking for advice on removing spot rust from a steel frame. I have used evaporust with success on parts that I could soak. It has not worked so well on areas of rust on the frame that I cannot soak. My plan is to keep the paint and stickers as they are. How would you get the rust off of the frame?

I used Krud Kutter - Rust Removal to remove small rust spots from a steele bike that I didn't want to have to re-paint.

Strip the frame, build a box from 1/4" ply and 1x2, line it with 6mil plastic, and dunk the frame in Oxalic acid. Come back tomorrow, wash it out with a baking-powder solution, dry, treat with Boeshield T-9, it's done.

Would you explain what you mean by "wash it out with baking-powder solution". What is the solution?

It's some baking-sode (or baking powder, either one works) in water; a mild alkai to neutralize the acid. Fill the tank with water, dump a box of Arm&Hammer in, swish it around until it's dissolved, dunk the frame for a few minutes.

I'm in a minority here, I think, but I don't like oxalic acid. You can fully immerse a frame in a surprisingly small quantity of Evaporust if you go about it right:

Immersing a 63 cm frame in 1 1/2 gallons of Evaporust

I use Oxalic for components i can submerge, but I've found that getting regular Naval Jelly and working it (and reworking, for about 10-15 min) with a brush does the trick. Rinses away with water, and gets you back to bare steel quicker and easier than the oxalic bath. Also found that it works faster/better in summer outdoor temps than it does in winter air.

Still working on a Trek frame, but mine had the dreaded sweaty person/trainer rust on the top tube cable guide areas. More pitting etc. than expected (in 2 cable guides, and 2 spots underside of the TT). Enough for me to probably ignore any similar condition bike in the future (I say that now but, you know). Moral - the rust in the picture you show - I think Evaporust would work well on that, possibly with paper towels. Or Naval Jelly.

First I mechanically removed quite a bit of rust, and did some targeted Naval Jelly with limited success. Next I tried wrapping with Evaporust paper towels, which worked but again was slow progress. I then did the Evaporust soak and it worked ok (2x4 trapezoid to soak each frame portion [other than seat tube which was pretty clean] with scrap wood pieces to fill voids to limit volume used about 1/2 gallon or maybe a little less)- I should have scrubbed it and re-inserted it over and over with the top tube spots, when I had it all out back to working on touch up, there was still rust under some black coating that the Evaporust left behind. Lesson learned. OA may have done better, not sure. One interesting note, the fork and seat stays had CRAZY amounts of black Evaporust solution coming out when I let it drain then rinsed out. Like seriously crazy given the volume. Wonder what's in there! (Did quite a bit of heat gun "drying" and then some frame saver). I ended up doing more mechanical removal and more longer duration Naval Jelly at the end to get as rust free as I could tell, with quite a bit of pitting. Initial coat in those pitted areas was with some Rust Reformer Rustoleum primer, then sanded smooth, and covered with touch up paint.

One day in 2024 when this is done (I kid, hopefully) I'll throw up a quick thread.


Naval Jelly - actually 2nd round after Evaporust soak, gave up trying to keep it off the paint, the Imron held up fine

Evaporust wrapping - after initial tries with Naval Jelly

Soaking Framework hack job

Top Tube Evaporust Soak

Has anyone had paint react to evaporust? I wrapped some evaporust soaked cloth around some tubes and it left a kinda textured white haze on the paint after washing/neutralising. Does anyone have advice on what to do now? It's a 50's bike and the paint is already quite beaten up, I just want to save the rest of it.

...FWIW, i've noticed that prolonged (24+ hrs) OA baths can leave a haze/cloud film on some old paint finishes, but have also noticed that the same old paints are not affected when naval jelly is worked across it for 20-30 minutes. (these are the two ways I get to bare metal)

I've never bothered being precise with how naval jelly gets applied, and I am only precise when using the "rust converter" products: these are the ones that chemically transform rust into something inert and black, and they will mess up any paint finish they land on.

I had discolouration with a gelled phosphoric acid product, not surprising as dyes generally don't like strong ph extremes.

No such problems from the OA bath, but it is probably much weaker.

And of course, none from electrolytic removal either.

I was a bit worried, as I read anecdotal evidence that OA could react to red paints and my Trek is dark red. I had no reactions seen between paint and Evaporust, soaked for 12-24 hours per tube/side, so some corner spots got 36+ hours of soak. The Trek is painted with Imron circa 1982 if that helps.

For what I see in the OP picture I would try to clean up with Turtle car wax as the most mild.If that was not successful next I would try Barkeepers' Friend.