When cleaning a vintage Weber Kettle there are always a few products and tools that are close at hand. Steel Wool, A Razor Scraper, Spray degreaser and now the most recent addition to the all star lineup is a product called Evapo-Rust. Many have probably heard about it at one time or another but the results almost seem too good to be true… well after using this product for a few months now I have nothing but extremely high praise for how well it works at tackling rust.
As a quick example I wanted to demonstrate what Evapo-Rust could do on a rusty old ash pan crossbar. Above is the donor part looking quite sad with some substantial surface rust. The bar itself is still solid but certainly not in the condition to be reinstalled on an otherwise restored kettle.
The bottle shown above is the 1L variety but it is also available in 1 Gal and 5 Gal Pails. The local hardware store only had the small bottle in stock so I used a flower vase to make the most of what I had.
The part was half submerged at 10:30pm Friday Night and was allowed to soak until 7:30am Sunday (32 Hours). As you can see the results are rather remarkable! Any rust contaminating the surface has dissolved away and the part looks this good after simply rinsing it off in water! No scrubbing, no wire brush, just a rejuvenated part that is ready to go back into service.
So don’t just throw those rusty parts away – ask yourself if a simple dip in the Evapo-Rust will turn that old part new again. I have had the chance to also try the product on some old steel wheels that were in really rough shape. After a similar soak time the wheels came out in amazing condition. I rinsed them off then went straight to primer and paint and was left with a like new set of vintage wheels. I cannot recommend this product enough BUT there is one caution that needs to mentioned as well. The Evapo-Rust almost works TOO well! Beware of leaving any metal part in the solution for more than a couple days as some parts with real issues will simply disinigrate into nothing because the rust was the only thing holding the part together. I find 24-36 hours is usually the sweet spot.
As long as you use it with common sense you will be just fine 🙂
Give it a shot – you wont be disappointed!
– Six
I used to use this for bike parts when restoring vintage steel bicycles. I agree it is great for rust removal! Thank you for reminding me about it.
I just ordered a gallon of this for cleaning the parts on my Gas Kettle Performer. Looking forward to seeing how it does.
the BEST!!!