Dealing with pits, rust, corrosion, protection

[nyindallas]

It is common that vintage units that are approaching 50 years old develop some corrosion or rust on their bases. They way I have dealt with that is:

1) use of a rust killer which has a chemical reaction and kills the rust.
2) use of a very fine sand paper to remove the residue.

I am wondering if:

There is a better way?
What to use as protection to prevent the return?
I would prefer to avoid painting.

Any comments or suggestions would be welcome.

Thanks

[diamondsouled]

One product I've found useful is called Never-Dull. It will take the dull finish off though and it should be used lightly on any areas with printing. If you want to avoid painting this is one product alternative. Sure can make amps look better in my experience.

Lar

[nyindallas]

Thanks.Where do you find it?

One product I've found useful is called Never-Dull. It will take the dull finish off though and it should be used lightly on any areas with printing. If you want to avoid painting this is one product alternative. Sure can make amps look better in my experience.

Lar

[NYListens]

What about flitz?

[Mike Stehr]

It is common that vintage units that are approaching 50 years old develop some corrosion or rust on their bases. They way I have dealt with that is:

1) use of a rust killer which has a chemical reaction and kills the rust.
2) use of a very fine sand paper to remove the residue.

I am wondering if:

There is a better way?
What to use as protection to prevent the return?
I would prefer to avoid painting.

Any comments or suggestions would be welcome.

Thanks

You can use never dull, but it is impossible to get the whole chassis shiny without tearing it apart.
It does however look better this way than not doing anything.

Once you got the rust out, you still have pitting, which needs to be sanded out. Sometimes the pitting looks light, and it turns out that it's actually pretty deep.

Most vintage tube amplifiers have a cadium coated chassis.
And when you start sanding out a deep scratch or pit, you'll start sanding through the cadium coat, and will see scratches in the coating.
It looks nasty when you see it.

Then you have to continue on and sand through the coating to bare metal.
It's a PITA, and takes a million years, but you can sand/polish the chassis out like chrome.

I did this with a Eico ST-70 chassis. I was going to do the same with my Altec 345A amp chassis, but a guy at work mentioned he could powder coat the chassis in classic chrome.
It turned out real nice, and saved me one helluva lotta time.

Maybe a microcrystalline type of wax may keep the chassis from tarnishing, like the stuff used in museums....
My ST-70 chassis still looks rather shiny after a good year or so, although I have never used any sort of wax.

[www.records]

I have read great things about this stuff and am going to place an order.

http://garage-toys.com/maasmetpolcr.html

[goraman]

after getting rid of the rust,you can keep it from ever returning with a thin layer of Berchwood Caseys's SHEATH it exeeds 3 mil specs is more affective than cosmaleen and a thin film seems to protect for 10 years or more under indoor conditions,even with a swamp cooler.

[www.records]

Apparently Cycle Magazine did a comparison of a bunch of metal polish and Maas was picked as the best.

http://www.maasinc.com/products_motorcycle.asp

[soundmotor]

If it is a run of the mill piece of gear and you don't care about losing silkscreens, strip it down to the raw chassis, have it bead blasted, bondo up the pitting, prime, bake, repaint, & bake again. Then do a full rebuild and you'll have something far better than when it left the factory. The preceding is the conclusion I finally came to after being very unsatisfied with how my projects looked after trying to do minimally invasive corrosion repair & stabilization. I use bith Flitz & NevrDull and they will remove a fair amount of oxidation but the repaired area looks so starkly different than the surrounding area that I don't like the result at all. Both of these products work the best on bare metal that needs to be returned to its original finish than surfaces that are cad-plated or painted.

[diamondsouled]

Thanks.Where do you find it?

Walmart usually carries it State side, up here in Canuck-land I've bought some at a Home Hardware store.

Lar