Technical Jim's helpful shop tip.

After fifteen years, I finally figured out why everything surface rusts in my garage! I have a few never opened gallons of muriatic acid I sometimes use outside for derusting. This pic is a $19.95 home depot neon shop light that was resting vertically on top of a gallon of acid. For years. Note the rust on the light and what fell on to the acid container. I think acid vapors can slowly leak out even with a factory sealed container. All muriatic acid will now live outside in a bomb shelter or something.

I finally contributed some perhaps valuable know how to the HAMB! Sorry it's not about scratch building a 41 willys coupe or something interesting like that. I'M NOT THAT TALENTED!

-90% Jimmy

 

Was at a buddy's shop over the weekend and he was digging through a very rusty cabinet and found a sealed bottle of Muriatic Acid it to ruined the cabinet and every metal piece tool chain in it! So it's not just you! Joe

 

good info - Thanks

 

I had a lot of rust form after I had been gas welding aluminium. The flux must have vaporised and settled on everything. We don't give enough thought to chemicals.

 

What others kinda acids ya got up in dar ?

 

You could have just been pissed and took it out on everyone you meet. Instead you turned your bad luck into helping your friends. You are a good man. Thanks. And yes, you are talented in a better way!

 

Have one setting in my garage, Its going outside NOW. Thanks

 

Not only Muratic acid, but any caustic liquid can do this...Im in the fire sprinkler industry and regardless of how nice a place is, if it has an indoor pool, the sprinkler heads and trim rings rust so badly they have to be replaced every couple years. good tip this one

 

Yes Sir it's no secret. Run your kerosene blower heater and the acid fumes mix. The stainless on your car gets small rust spots on it. Your friend comes in the garage where you've been most of the day. He quickly hits the door opener and orders you out of your own garage. After about an hour in the open air your realize how bad the air was in the garage. I've not had in muratic acid around in years.

 

We have a storage room in our garage. Many of the tools stored there have gotten very rusty in the past few years. I first blamed it on the high humidity during typical Australian summers. But tools in other parts of the garage did not show the same level of corrosion. It finally dawned on me...we also stored pool chemicals (chlorine, hydro-chloric acid, etc) in the same storage room. Although the (plastic) containers are well sealed, I am convinced vapours have escaped slowly over time and caused the heavy rust. Have just moved the containers into a storage box outdoors!

 

Some great advice. You just don't think about some things until someone reminds you....Thanks.

 

X2 on the pool chemicals. A community pool kept their chemicals in the electric room and it disintegrated an 800 amp meter cabinet. The only thing holding the bus bars up were the line and load cables. They had to replace everything in the room.

 

I work at a small water treatment plant.Inside open filter pools which have a heavy CL contents.Also the dreaded fluoride tank upstairs and down stairs with dosing tanks.I know the fluoride vents a bit into the inside air . The windows near these are etched and over time we need new copy machines and such because the contacts get all boogered up.Erasers on new pencils in a storage cabinet about 15 ft away were dry as a bone in two months. Where I do most of my work is on the other end of the building.No one has ever gotten cancer since the plant opened in 38.
Point is,in a shop your ceiling florescent lights wont last and it will work on machine switches too. Store that crap outside or in a sealed cabinet like thinners are.Cant be good for that expensive paint job either

 

Add me too Jim and Joe! Did the same thing last week and found a plastic bottle of it in the far back "now rusty" corner of my flammables cabinet. It will shortly be off to the local hazardous waste disposal site. Haven't used it in ages and couldn't even remember what I originally bought it for!

 

Dang!-Great info-I am going to have to check out all my storage cabinets for conflicting materials

 

Wonder what the hell its doing to us . Stretching this premise out a little and just thinking the trunk of the hot rod has surface rust is the area of the battery (same acid isn't it?) so I guess it stands to reason it may be contributing to this as well. Hmmmm...what to do. This is not the only demon in the garage but time to get rid of it. What about Vinegar, Molasses, Mothballs, etc. We all have to careful with all of this stuff. Thanks Frank...I mean 85

 

Found out the hard way. A 50 50 mix of a calcium rust and lime product and water. Forgot I set it aside on the mill. All the collets in the holder rusted, and that's only the first thing I noticed. Needless to say, lot's of Scotch-Brite and WD-40 was in order. Never doing that again.

 

Then their is MEK. This is some bad stuff. While working a project for the Safety dept. at the local car factory I found many employees washing their hands in the stuff. I ran them copies of the MSDS sheets. Some of the guys scoffed others couldn't believe the hazards. Think about the times we washed our hands in gasoline are thinner. I wear rubber gloves a lot now days.

 

At least we are more aware of all the chemical stuff around us that we were in the days of tradition...I bet there are lots of people here like me who spent many hours cleaning parts in buckets of leaded gasoline without a thought!

 

The stereotype of the old fellow in every small town gas station that seemed a little short on brain cells is no joke. Imagine spending a lifetime pumping leaded fuel and having it soak into your pores. Who knew!

 

Now get that rising thing off from leaning up against that car!
I know it's an OT car, but give it some respect.

 

Rusty thing.....stupid autocorrect.

 

i've been gone for a few years and i'm posting just to make sure i'm logged in. - jim

 

I see you!!

Ben

 

Welcome back! Joe

 

I did contract work for a metallurgical testing lab. There were numerous types of acids which were mixed with other chemicals to etch polished metal surfaces to check grain structures. Even though the acids were stored in glass bottles the inside of the steel cabinet they were stored in was completely rusted. Also if the beakers the mixed acid was in were left out on the counter overnight any metal nearby would have a light coat of surface rust. We did testing in a up draft filtered hood and still you could smell it. Nasty dangerous stuff for skin contact but also vapors.

 

I left a 2 pack of Miller genuine draft Beer , I forgot about inside a big giant rolling tool box like this https://www.homedepot.com/p/DEWALT-...LOrWHYLnjTEaAuwvEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds#overlay
with a new husqvarna chainsaw, a Sawsall, skill saw, other tools, during 115degree summer in Lake Elsinore.
months later when I opened the box everything was rusted like crazy. The 12 pack of beer exploded in the heat of the summer inside the garage, Could have been over 150 degrees in there. Beer rusted the hell out of and ruined all the saws and tools

 

I went thru this about 5 months ago. Found things rusting in my shop and I just thought there must be a lot of moisture being trapped in the shop.

A couple weeks later I moved some stuff I had in front of a cabinet and found the bottom of the cabinet almost rusted away. I found a half full gallon jug of muriatic acid in there. Then I knew exactly why I was having rust pop up everywhere.

.

 

When I raced karts back in the 80's I had a small glass bottle of acid. I used it to remove transferred piston aluminum from cylinder walls after the occasional stuck piston. Never thought about it until now, but the interior of my small toolbox where the kart specialty tools used to reside is corroded in one corner. I always thought the cap was faulty, but it seems like it's inevitable. Hmmmmm.

 

Way back when I was getting in the lithographic trade, we used acetic acid in the film development process. The darkroom was built around the gas hot water heater so as to have a convenient water source. The acidic acid fumes that we breathed in there were enough to completely take out the water heater and flue about every 2 years.
But the supposedly sealed bottle thing? Yea, that's also pretty scary.