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
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.
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!
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!
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!
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.
The Jalopy Journal
