Oh and thanks for the recipe. Going to try it out.

tried it. its ok but my $20,000 soda blaster does a better job.
only thing i can see a use for (for me) would be anything glavanized or anodized. like the filler neck on a A body?

Wow lots of different opinions and questions to answer! I got the salad dressing idea from a neighbor that restores lamps and antiques.. he uses a similar solution for lightly rusted stuff. His sons a student at our local university and he explained how the 2 acids and sodium react to make this combo work. He also told me they use this solution to clean corrosion off of copper pots , brass fittings and to remove rust. You can make your penny's shiny if you want with this stuff and it will make silver shine like new!.. I just kept making different solutions "some from the internet that claimed they worked" and keeping track of which ones worked the best and was the cheapest to make over a year period. As far as losing family time as one guy insinuated I had my kid help me so I didn't lose and quality family time LOL We even went to the lake and my daughter used our metal detector to find items and we put them in the solution to clean them up .. I tried alot of the recipes I have found on the net and alot of them didn't work at all.. This recipe works the same as the stuff you buy at my local parts store "oriellys" and it even smells the same! .. I have yet to see anything cheaper "delivered" to your door that actually works! Where I am at vinegar is $1.98 a gallon lemon juice is .88 cents and salt is $1.oo for a box.. now as far as neutralizing it .. I wash everything down with a light mixture of dawn soap and water if i am not going to paint it right away I just put some light penetrating oil onit to keep the rust from coming back....Its really not a bother to make this stuff! I mean they sell all the stuff at your local food mart.. I used it on my fender tag and it left the paint intact and only attacked the rust and left the paint where the paint was still fully intact.. I haven't tried it on aluminum or something that is zinc plated.. so I cant answer that question other than I wouldn't put any acid with aluminum! back in high-school we used to make drano bombs out of a 2 liter bottle, aluminum foil and some drano or drain opener..
So I think even this mildly acidic formula would attack the aluminum. and LOL I bet this formula doesn't work as fast or efficiently as a 20k soda blaster but it could greatly reduce the contamination the soda sees before you blast it hence making the soda last longer... As far as salad dressing goes I guess if you thinned it out with some water it might not be half bad! I'll have to get back with you guys on that one. lol I might try it out on the wife's relatives this xmas..

just an overnight soak

I mixed up a batch a few minutes ago and put in a shock plate that I had sitting on the shelf. We'll see how it goes...

A similar recipie has been out there for a while, my mother used to use it to polish brass around the house, her recipie (for smaller batches) was 1/2 cup of white vinager to a table spoon of salt, then she mixed in white flour make it into a paste, or she boiled it and dropped smaller items in to cook them clean (boiling worked GREAT on greasey/dirty stuff BTW). I'm not sure if the Lemon juice (citric acid) would add much strength to it or not since vinager is a pretty acidic allready but it couldn't hurt.

Nice

And I spent some money on a bead blaster!!!

Okay, tried it yesterday starting at noon, took it out at 3am and it was still pretty crusty so put it back in and took it out at 9:30 am this morning. 21 hours?

Anyway it was a REALLY rusty and crusty shock plate that I had just laying on the shelf. Here are the results:

Backside:

On the areas like the shock mount and washer where the rust wasn't that bad it took it off in the 12 hours.

I'll put it back in and let it soak for another 12 hours or so. Honestly it's pretty impressive as corroded as these things were (pic's don't do it justice).

I didn't get before shots but here is the opposite side and they looked much the same:

other side:

squeezed lemons makes wonders on deep rust.i just rinsed with hot water and so far the paint on my trunk lock shield holds the paint(4 months)it was an experiment,but its pretty impressive how good it works.i was making limoncello with home made booze and got some lemons over,so i tried it.the result is totally clean metall,maybe you should rinse in something else to make it last?im happy so far

I've been looking for something like this that leaves an almost-clean finish. For the last several years I've been using Ospho (or Advance Auto's version called "Right-Stuff"), but I don't like the slightly sticky residue that stuff leaves behind, especially if you try to use it on a partially painted or coated surface

No pics at this point but after leaving the plate in another day or so it came out almost completely free of rust and looking brand new!

I'm impressed!

Brilliant! I've needed something EXACTLY like this for all kinds of small parts.

I'm going to try this on some small stuff I have. Thanks for posting it. I wonder how it would work on Window Regulators and door latch mechanisms.