G'day Guys,

I'm going to re-wrap my sons casting rod into a simple spiral, re-using the existing guides. The guides have a bit of green corrosion on them. What would be the best way of removing this? Mechanical abrasion or is there a chemical way of doing it i.e. a weak acidic solution such as vinegar or the good old Coca-Cola?

I gather the green is a compound of chromium, but I'm not sure if it is from the chromium content of stainless steel or if the guides are chrome plated. If the guides are chrome plated, what is the base metal likely to be?

Regards

Jason

Vinegar works great. Soak the guides in a cup of vinegar for a few minutes then scrub gently.

Lou



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/26/2007 07:16AM by Lou Reyna.

You probably have some guides that have been treated with a coating like chrome plating or TiCh. The color you are looking at does not come from the stainless steel base metal. Some plating processes involve a metal pretreat with a copper deposition phase. When you prep a coated guide frame you will notice a very thin layer of copper under the top coating. The destinctive green color you observing is a form of copper oxide or sulfate. Strange as it may seem one of the best ways to clean it up is to use tobasco sauce or a form of red pepper sauce. The sauce is vinegar based and the peppers add a form of a chelating agent to complex the excess copper ions. If you are leery try taking a tarnished penny and put a few drops of tobasco on it - let it sit a few minutes and wipe it off. What is the acid Ed - ascorbic? Shiney Huh! The best way to keep it to a minimum is to coat the surface of the guides with a marine polish containing Teflon. I use Starbrite from West Marine.

Thanks for the help guys. Might try the vinegar as we have that. Don't have any tabasco on hand!

Thanks again

Jason

Any time you use an ACID (White Vinegar is 5% Acetic Acid in ~95% Water) to restore a metallic part that has nooks & crannies (or a porous, pitted or painted surface) like a (ceramic ring) guide FRAME, make sure to SOAK the part in WATER a couple of times AFTER rinsing off the acid (vinegar). This lets the water reach into microscopic pores and leach out the acid.

Acetic acid is somewhat volatile, which helps produce a more residue-free surface. After rinsing & soaking, the DRY part (line guide) should have absolutely NO ODOR of vinegar. If it does, then you need to rinse & soak it again, so that the acid etching does not continue longer than necessary, nor get trapped in between the metal FRAME and the ceramic RING.

Moderate warming from a hair dryer or heat gun can accelerate drying, if you are in a rush. BUT if the vinegar odor persists, keep rinsing & soaking BEFORE you apply any heat. If you add heat first, you will accelerate the chemical etching faster than you accelerate the evaporation of fhe water vehicle of the (acetic) acid solution.

I am not much of a metallurgist, so that is about all I can say about the chemistry involved. Maybe Ed Smith (PhD Chemist, DuPont) or Mark Gibson (Polymer Chemist & Material Scientist) can comment further.

-Cliff Hall, Bach.Sci. Chemistry (UF, 1983).

P.S. - My own personal attitude about guides and corrosion is to replace any part that has structural damage due to corrosion. Also, if corrosion is likely to recur because the metal's protective surface cannot be restored, then that part is discarded. ... IMO, Time is far more valuable than any line guide on any rod I have ever re-built. So I am not an expert in restoring old guides.

But I just know from my servicing my own fishing reels and also from my service maintenence on expensive scientific laboratory equipment (with irreplaceable parts) used in acidic / corrosive enviroments that SOAKING a part AFTER first soap washing, then acid cleaning is THE WAY to do it. One or two batches of only 5 minutes of swirled immersion is usually enough. I have NOT soaked, and discovered later that acid remained under a painted surface or in some tiny crevice, when the "green crude" grew out again a few weeks later.

Aside from nostalgia or the sake of preserving a rod's original components for its collector value (which is usually NIL), line guides are replaced on any re-build, just like spark plugs on an engine tune-up. -Cliff Hall.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/26/2007 10:40PM by Cliff Hall.

I almost hate to say this, but I think what you have is a precurser, if not actual, corrosion. As such, I'd do the rebuild with new guides.

Uncle Russ
Calico Creek Rods

Jason Groombridge Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
.....
> ....... Don't have any tabasco on hand!
How can that be? If you've nothing at least as hot as that, then get religion! :-)

Frankly, unless it is really minor corrosion you are talking about you might want to look at new guides. If going the refurb route, try what's been mentioned, or naval jelly, or metal prep acid, or a slice of lemon with salt (sounds weird but it really cleans copper nicely.... salt added to vinegar works better for me than straight vinegar also).
Whether new or reburb,,, prep, clean well, and coat the feet before wrapping. Was some discussion a few months back on coating feet. Some people think it is not needed, but I don't remember anyone showing a negative to doing it if the metal is prepped well. Easy insurance I think.

Guys,

Thanks again for your responses.

I can definitely see your point about replacing the guides. I'm not sure its worth it with this rod as it's not a high end stick anyway. I guess it might "do" my son for a few years, at which point I would endeavour to build him something new and nice from scratch. Mind you, the handle and reel seat on this rod are not great, so maybe its worth buying new components and doing a full rebuild as a Father and Son project.

Regards

Jason

Sounds like the right approach to me. With the base metal being an unknown, clean up as you would stainless (very clean and passivate) and then rustproof as you would for regular steel (paint/coat). Should certainly let you play with the acid wrap in a way that will be usable for quite some time.
So far as rebuilding the handle,,,,, they aren't usually made to come off easily. By the time you are talking all new compoents, you may as well get a cheap blank too and start from scratch.

Jason,

You might try this, I have and it worked pretty well. Get a cheap rock tumbler polisher, put your guides in with some crushed Walnut hulls or Buckwheat hulls ( the kind that is used in the Japanese pillows ) and tumble them overnight. Then follow Daves suggestion on prep. WHen I did it, all but the extremely rusted guides came out looking like new.

Bill in WV

Loosiana boys can figure out a way to put Tabasco on ANYTHING...

Mick try cleaning the old penny trick and a smile will come on your face. We have to cook in old cast iron pots - too much Tobasco for the shiney bottom copper ones when we berl over de gumbo! I wonder what would happen if we posted a copy of the ASTM Standards For Pickling Procedures for Austenetic Stainless. Then all we would have to worry about was if the rods were sour, dill or kosher.

Problem with a tumbler and organic media is contamination of the media for future use. I use walnut for my brass, and made the mistake years ago of using it for everything and anything. After odd corrosion and streaks, I figured the walnut has absorbed and then nicely distributed nasty stuff. So now I use different medias for other things. Walnut for brass and never use that same media for anything else. For really cleaning, black diamond (sharp granular coal slag) is pretty decent stuff. None of them are aggressive enough (in my experience) to clean off decent plating though. Note I use a vibratory bowl setup, rather than a rolling can.

Thanks for all the input guys. I would have tried the tumbler method but sold mine recently due to a rationalisation of my shooting gear. About the hottest thing I've got in the house is some Cayenne or Paprika. Do you reckon they might do the trick? :-)

Jason

Hi Jacon,,,,,, I don't think it is the hotness of the sauce, but rather the acidic nature of the carrier and the salt. Try the vinegar, lemon, or lime jiuce paths and I think you are doing the same thing. Adding salt definitely helps, even if it seems counter intuitive for removing corrosion.
The vibratory cleaner I have works ok,,,,, but takes a long time on tough stuff. Of course sandblasting with fine aluminum oxide does REALLY well.

A few years ago I came to know about using vinegar and salt for removing corrosion - - -
- - - especially from saltwater. The situation was how to disolve the salt readily.- - -
This can be done by heating the vinegar - - - - do not boil - - - in a pot and stir while
putting in salt. - - - NOTE ! :- The first mixture I made was in an aluminum pot -- -
a no no -- - The mixture etched the pot.

jocko