# I done gone and got me a project - rust!



## Joey Shabadoo (28 Apr 2021)

Picked this up for a bargain £30 from eBay






A nice wee blacksmith's post vice and stand. Quite a bit of work to do though.





I need to figure out if there's a wedge missing that would explain the leaf spring being loose and not pushing the jaws open.

Anyway, step one - take it to bits






The bolts holding the top bracket on will never release their nuts so I'll grind them off tomorrow.

Now what about getting the rust off. A 5l bottle of evapo-rust costs as much as the vice did so I'm thinking of a vinegar/salt solution unless anyone's got a better idea?


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## fossyant (28 Apr 2021)

Drill and wire brush attachment


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## Profpointy (28 Apr 2021)

fossyant said:


> Drill and wire brush attachment



small angle grinder and wire cup brush. Beware the bristles fire off and stick in your legs through trousers - annoying rather than causing injury, but a reminder that goggles are essential

It'd take years with drill driven brush


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## Tail End Charlie (28 Apr 2021)

The smaller bits would do fine in a vinegar bath. For the larger pieces an angle grinder with either a cup brush or flap disc (coincidentally Aldi have them in at the moment). Cup brushes are quite pricy, don't use cheaper ones as they're often out of balance and vibrate massively.


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## Cerdic (28 Apr 2021)

Electro-something... You need a bucket, soda crystals, a couple of crocodile clips and some electricity. Gets all the rust off like magic while you are doing something more interesting, like cycling or having a nice cup of tea and a piece of cake!

I can't remember the exact process, but it is pretty simple and there will be plenty of people on YouTube who will explain the details...


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## slowmotion (28 Apr 2021)

Cerdic said:


> Electro-something... You need a bucket, soda crystals, a couple of crocodile clips and some electricity. Gets all the rust off like magic while you are doing something more interesting, like cycling or having a nice cup of tea and a piece of cake!
> 
> I can't remember the exact process, but it is pretty simple and there will be plenty of people on YouTube who will explain the details...


Electrolysis. It converts rust to magnetite and leaves the good steel unharmed. See here.......

[media]
]View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-prcdrvb_E[/media]


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## Phaeton (28 Apr 2021)

Yep one more vote for electricity


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## Joey Shabadoo (28 Apr 2021)

Ye-ah. Me and electrickery don't get on. I'll burn down the house, get divorced and be living on the streets with my cat trying to find wi-fi to post the results on CC


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## Edwardoka (29 Apr 2021)

I was originally going to suggest sticking the smaller bits in your swanky forge and giving them a tap to get the oxide layer off, but you have no way of knowing how they were originally tempered so after quenching their properties would be different.

The work surface looks unsalvageable. Replace it, chop it up and use it for pattern welding practice?


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## Joey Shabadoo (29 Apr 2021)

Aye the surface is gone so new bit of plate required.


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## Phaeton (29 Apr 2021)

Joey Shabadoo said:


> Ye-ah. Me and electrickery don't get on.


It's not real electrickery it's only 12v electrickery but it does do a good job I use it on car parts


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## Joey Shabadoo (30 Apr 2021)

36 hours soaked in vinegar and salt






Hmmm


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## Milkfloat (30 Apr 2021)

Joey Shabadoo said:


> 36 hours soaked in vinegar and salt
> 
> View attachment 586464
> 
> ...


I concur with those above - add some power to the setup. 12v will be fine and fairly difficult to get it wrong.


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## Joey Shabadoo (30 Apr 2021)

Ok.






Now bubbling away.

For the record, this is my shed before the inevitable explosion


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## Phaeton (30 Apr 2021)

b rite


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## Milkfloat (1 May 2021)

For someone that does not do this new fangled electricity stuff your setup looks fine. Do you still have a shed?


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## Joey Shabadoo (1 May 2021)

Just peeked, still there !

Plastic tub has quite a lot of orange sludge though - do I need to skim that out? I'll clean up the anodes before doing the next batch.


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## Joey Shabadoo (1 May 2021)

Well that's a bit impressive !


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## MontyVeda (1 May 2021)

...and here's the shed.


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## jowwy (1 May 2021)

Joey Shabadoo said:


> Ok.
> 
> View attachment 586492
> 
> ...


you got another project now……replacing those rather wharped roof beams, before they snap


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## Archie_tect (1 May 2021)

Just need temporarily prop up the rafters mid-sag and fix them up with a cable wire fixed with eye-bolts at each end of the rafters slung under a vertical bracing wooden strut mid-span to create a simple truss and that roof'll last you out!


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## Phaeton (1 May 2021)

Joey Shabadoo said:


> Well that's a bit impressive !


See ye of little faith


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## Tail End Charlie (1 May 2021)

That's great, I've never tried electrolysis, I will be doing now.


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## Darius_Jedburgh (1 May 2021)

That electrolysis looks seriously impressive.


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## randynewmanscat (2 May 2021)

Joey Shabadoo said:


> Picked this up for a bargain £30 from eBay
> View attachment 586265
> 
> 
> ...


Plastic tank, grunty 12VDC power supply, sodium carbonate, steel wire. 
There is nothing cheaper or more effective.
I used to use citric acid diluted in water but it got pricey.


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## randynewmanscat (2 May 2021)

People who use electrolysis for cleaning artifacts, old gun parts, agricultural tools take the process to professional levels to avoid discolouration. Changing the solution during the process, using water low in carbonates to stop blackening. 
I saw some very old woodwork tools that had been subjected to electrolysis TLC and they looked perfect, the pitting clearly visible but the steel looked like it was fresh from the shop and without any blemishes.


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## Joey Shabadoo (2 May 2021)

I appear to have taken over the back porch 

The steel worksurface was going to cost £50 to replace so, as it's the stand that's the important bit, flipping it over to the slightly better underside will suffice.


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## Arrowfoot (2 May 2021)

Was wondering why would a chair have uneven armrests


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## Joey Shabadoo (2 May 2021)

Arrowfoot said:


> Was wondering why would a chair have uneven armrests


Tbh, that's got me flummoxed. It does appear to have been made that way. One side is 75mm higher than the other and there was a rotten piece of wood making up the difference before. Replacing with fresh timber.


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## classic33 (2 May 2021)

Joey Shabadoo said:


> Picked this up for a bargain £30 from eBay
> View attachment 586265
> 
> 
> ...


Weak spring as opposed to a piece(wedge) missing!


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## Joey Shabadoo (2 May 2021)

classic33 said:


> Weak spring as opposed to a piece(wedge) missing!
> View attachment 586845


Ooh handy diagram - thank you!

I see mine's was missing the keyed wedge. I had thought it was opposing wedges so I'd made one up, but a keyed wedge makes more sense.

In the pic below you can see the gap at the clamp caused by the missing keyed wedge that meant the spring had fallen loose.


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## slowmotion (2 May 2021)

I just stumbled on a pretty detailed article on electrolysis that gives instructions for removing the black muck left after the rust has migrated.

https://www.metaldetectingworld.com/electrolysis_rust_removal.shtml


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## Joey Shabadoo (2 May 2021)




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## Darius_Jedburgh (2 May 2021)

But what, exactly, is it?


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## classic33 (2 May 2021)

Darius_Jedburgh said:


> But what, exactly, is it?


A leg vice attached to a suitable "portable" work stand/table.


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## ColinJ (2 May 2021)

Darius_Jedburgh said:


> But what, exactly, is it?





Joey Shabadoo said:


> A nice wee blacksmith's post vice and stand.


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## Joey Shabadoo (2 May 2021)

My back disagrees with the "portable" bit. Definitely a 2 person lift.

A "post" or "leg" vice differs from normal vices in that all the energy from battering whatever it's holding with big hammers is dissipated down the post and into the ground - none into the workbench. If you used a normal vice - like the one attached to my wooden bench in my wooden shed with a wooden floor - you're liable to damage the bench and/or shed. In addition, when you batter downwards on your normal vice, a lot of the energy goes through the threads which could also be damaged. 

This post vice is designed for big hairy lummoxes like me to mallet big bits of iron with bloomin' great hammers. They're deceptively clever bits of engineering almost unchanged since the 1800s.


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## slowmotion (3 May 2021)

I'll admit to being a sensitive soul......those countersunk shiny socket head screws put a hurt on my eye.


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## battered (3 May 2021)

I think that a leg vice is traditionally forged steel or cast steel and not cast iron. Cast iron is brittle and it is possible to break a cast iron vice with a big enough hammer. This one will be steel and if you hit it hard enough it will simply bend. This makes them immune to the biggest blacksmith.


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## classic33 (3 May 2021)

slowmotion said:


> I'll admit to being a sensitive soul......those countersunk shiny socket head screws put a hurt on my eye.


He could have blackened them, so they didn't stand out as much I'll agree.


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## Seevio (3 May 2021)

battered said:


> I think that a leg vice is traditionally forged steel or cast steel and not cast iron. Cast iron is brittle and it is possible to break a cast iron vice with a big enough hammer. This one will be steel and if you hit it hard enough it will simply bend. This makes them immune to the biggest blacksmith.


In all fairness, It's possible to break nearly everything with a big enough hammer.


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## fossyant (3 May 2021)

Joey Shabadoo said:


> My back disagrees with the "portable" bit.
> 
> This post vice is designed for big hairy lummoxes like me to mallet big bits of iron with bloomin' great hammers.



Your poor bike. 

👅


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## Cerdic (3 May 2021)

Well that came up nice, didn't it!


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## randynewmanscat (3 May 2021)

slowmotion said:


> I just stumbled on a pretty detailed article on electrolysis that gives instructions for removing the black muck left after the rust has migrated.
> 
> https://www.metaldetectingworld.com/electrolysis_rust_removal.shtml


Using demin water helps a lot as does changing the solution before the last of the iron oxide layer falls away.


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## randynewmanscat (3 May 2021)

Seevio said:


> In all fairness, It's possible to break nearly everything with a big enough hammer.


Oh yes it most definitely is.


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## ColinJ (4 May 2021)

Seevio said:


> In all fairness, It's possible to break nearly everything with a big enough hammer.





randynewmanscat said:


> Oh yes it most definitely is.


If you think of an industrial hydraulic press as being a very big, very slow hammer then I know of some mad Finns who are eager to prove that fact to you on the Hydraulic Press Channel on YouTube...!



PS Big fun at 5:50!!!


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