Can you post an after pic?
And a step by step of the process you used?

I will.

i have two drawers of nuts and bolts and just hit them on the wire wheel bench grinder when i need one

any time i do that, they are flung into outer space, or as my old man uset'a say : "part's unknown.........."

The chemical method is just so much better even though it's slower. It gets all the threads inside of nuts cleaned up, which cannot be done with a wire brush by hand, for example. If you're in a hurry it's nor ideal it can take hours for Evaporust to do it's thing, but if you have the time to do it this way the final results are superior to the mechanical methods.

After soaking in white vinegar, hand wire brushing worked very well for me.

For fasteners originally phosphated and oiled or Parkerized, the next step is re-phosphating.

Keeping the temperature steady at 200 degrees without boiling is important and can be accomplished by using a double pot method. I used an electric frying pan filled with water as the heat source, and the phosphating solution was in another stainless pot sitting in the water.

results after phosphating.

For fasteners with phosphated as the final finish, RPM wax looks better than than "oiled".

After soaking for 48 hours, the hand wire brushing begins.

I’ve used vinegar in the past and it works. My go to now is powdered citric acid dissolved in water. It’s used in canning believe it or not, and I usually buy it in a 5 pound bag off amazon.

Y Citric by M Patterson, on Flickr

It seems to work quicker than the vinegar, and doesn’t have that nasty vinegar smell. I’ve used it on nut and bolts, small parts and I have a big tub and even used it on heads and blocks (Mostly to clean water jackets).

Y RP by M Patterson, on Flickr


H3 by M Patterson, on Flickr

Years ago I’d wire wheel the old nuts and bolts and throw them in a 5 gallon bucket then take them up to a commercial plater and he’d zinc plate them for me and I had a choice of clear or gold anodize as the final step. It was actually pretty cheap, but either OSHA or EPA shut the place down after a fire….go figure.

Anyone have photo samples of results of a "Tumble Vibe" on nuts, bolts, etc.,?

Thanks

Mike, how long does the citric acid take ?
how long was the block and heads soaked ?

I use many of the above chemicals AND in a sonic cleaner. Not much manual input needed then. Sonic cleaners have gotten very affordable.

Ive bad lungs so the heated sonic cleaner and simple dish washer pods also work great.

Set at 180 degrees and 30 minutes run time and thats it.

pretty impressive results 'tater !
never thought about using those dishwasher pods. [there is a container of them under the kitchen sink we use all the time]

Here’s how they look after a wire brushing session.