Oxalic acid (deck cleaner) on rusty rims:

[DJ Bill]

A repost of my thread on the Cxxx:
Start with this:

A cheap wheel I picked up from Ichi bikes in DesMoines, almost solid brown with rust...
Add several days soaking and turning it in the mix of 40/60 deck cleaner /water in this:

Notice with the tire installed and aired up.....which of course means less of the rim is in the mix so it is a bit lengthier a process than a bare rim in a more appropriate container would have been.
And you get this, here we have one last dip to do for the last stretch of rust..

Very minor scrubbing was used with a copper scrubbie to get the yellow slime off the rims, but most of it just washed off with a hose.
Here is the results on a very rusty inner rim:

AS you can see there is black rust underneath the red rust and it is not really touching that. More soaking is needed to finish these, but the rim needs relacing anyhow so I will be pulling the nipples and spokes (The plating on the brass nipples almost all came off in the soak....)and attacking it with a wire wheel first.

 

[Bicycle808]

Yes, oxalic acid is cheap, available at the local hardware shop, and awesome at eating rust off of chromed steel.

 

[DJ Bill]

this is what I was using.....got it cheap from a salvage store, and mixed it with slightly more water than the deck cleaner...

It is normally cheaper to buy the crystals like this: $8 a tub, a couple of tablespoons per gallon of water is what I am told....

This is my first trial of this stuff, so far it has been as good as everyone says..

 

[Toeslider]

My kiddy pool full of the stuff just recently thawed out from the winter, so I'm anxious to put something in it and see if it still works. I covered it with a thin plastic painters drop cloth and not much seemed to evaporate. I keep it covered almost all the time. Before I did that I had issues with evaporation.

 

[bebopblu]

Have been using the acid for a while.....it saves a huge amount of work and parts come out great....just rinse and dry well after last soak....thanks for the series of photos