Acid Dipping vs. Media Blasting vs. Our Bio-degradable Solution
What is the best way to strip the rust off your car? This question is asked hundreds of times across forums everywhere. Rust is a natural enemy of steel. Oxidation breaks it down and eventually it will leave you with nothing but a pile of orange flakes. There are a few methods to stop rust in its tracks and prevent it from spreading.
Acid Dipping
This is one of the first things that comes to peoples mind when they think of rust removal. This is one of the easiest way to remove rust, plain and simple. You throw your car in a vat of hydrochloric acid for a few days and when it comes out your car is nice and clean. All that is sounds great in theory but there are a few caveats when it comes to dipping your car in acid.
1. Terrible for the environment – acid is HIGHLY dangerous and HIGHLY corrosive to EVERYTHING. You see what it does to steel. Think about what it could do to your skin. Tons of safety measures are taken to insure the employees of these acid companies are safe. They have high insurance, highly specialized workers. All of it adds up money wise.
2. Expensive – Insurance and acid disposal really adds to the bottom line cost for this solution.
3. Future Rust - In acid dipping every surface is stripped, even the flanges, seams etc. Areas we cannot see that would be difficult to impossible to recoat/prime only leading to vulnerable rust issues. Also, if the vehicle is not neutrilized correctly after dipping, primer/paint has the possibly of bubbling down the road.
4. If your car or truck is very badly rusted, you won’t have much of a car when it comes out.
5. Very few acid dipping shops in the Tri-State Area.
Media Blasting
Media blasting is another very popular choice. This is not the average sand blast. This process uses soda powder or walnut shells. This will remove paint and some surface rust but will not do much to heavily rusted vehicles. A few downsides include.
1. Messy – debris gets everywhere. You’re shooting crushed up walnut shells with compressed air, bouncing them off your car. Believe us, its a mess. Soda gets into every single crack in your car and becomes difficult to get out.
2. Wont remove corrosion on heavily rusted cars – it removes paint.
3. Soda leaves a film – This film actually protects the car from flash rusting but it becomes a pain when you go to paint. you must sand the car down or else primer will have trouble sticking.
Our Bio-degradable Solution
Our bio-degradable soultion is safe to the touch and the price per gallon is much cheaper than any other solution. The solution is mixed with other components and then diluted with water. The solution bonds with the rust and removes it after a few days in the solution. Once you’re done, you can pour it right down the drain or even use it as a fertilizer for your garden. Again, there are some downsides.
1. Time – this process takes approximately 20 days to complete for larger items (complete car bodies) or 10 days for smaller objects (hand tools, door handles, etc)
2. Does not completely remove paint – this can be a blessing to someone who wants to fix their rockers or fender with out damaging existing paint. The solution does not attack paint only oxidized steel.
All three have their strengths and weaknesses. In some cases media blasting will be your best route and in some cases our solution will be the way to go. We will recommend the best solution to fit your needs.
