A couple of weeks or so I asked about what to do with a cast iron pump that I wanted to display since it was made by the company owned by my great grandfather in the 30s. Someone (Oren?) suggested wire brushing it and putting rust stabilizer on it to keep the patina. Hardware stores are confusing with rust neutralizer, inhibitor or remover. Anybody have a suggested brand that I could look for?
You could do the electrolysis thing Bob talked about or use an oxalic acid compound like Naval Jelly after wire brushing off all that will come off easy. Since this is going to be a display piece, motor oil and mineral spirits (50:50) will give it a nice patina.
How much wire brushing do you intend to do. I've found with a wire wheel on a bench grinder can make things look almost like new, metal and even wood. They don't look exactly like they themselves did when they were new becuase the finish is a little different, but they look great. (Maybe it won't even look old enough if you do that, although I suspect the design will show how old it is.)
If there is some corner where you can't wire brush it and there is still rust, is that bad? I've found I can get almost everything with a 4 or
5" wheel, but I could get more with an electric drill. A cone for inside the pump's mouth, but I think I would leave the rust there. It's an antique.After you brush it, why would it rust again, and certainly why would it rust before you put it on display? It's not going to get wet**, is it? How long do you plan to display it. How humid will its environment be?
Do other things displayed where you intend to display this rust? You may have time to put something rustable there and see, before you have to finish the pump?
I didn't like naval jelly. (For one thing, it got mucked up with belly-button lint.)
**My junior high science teacher wanted to know if water had anythying to do with rust and the answer he wanted was no, because, I'm sure, of the chemical reaction for rust, iron and oxygen. But everyone with eyes knows that water is a catalyst or something. (My 7th grade wood/electric shop teacher wanted to know why birds on electric wires werent' electrocuted, and I said it was because they werent' grounded, and he marked it wrong. Said it was because the wires were insulated. Some are, I think, but some aren't. I let it go without complaining.)(My 7th grade
I had a similar experience, the teacher said it was because the birds took off and landed with BOTH feet at exactly the same time.
I learned to question authority.
m
My 4th grade teacher said the sun was a ball of hot gases. It had been proven that if it were made of coal, it would have burned up by now, so it had to be hot gases.
My 9 year old brain thought yeah, coal would burn up and turn into hot gas, and then cool down. Something's wrong with this picture. So I asked her if maybe it could involve nuclear.
BIG MISTAKE! I paid for that one. "NO! IT'S HOT GASES!" and made to stand in the corner.
It is to be outside as an accent piece around the firepit.
Me too, but it was gradual. Those were the second and third incidents. The first was when I was 8 and it was someone on the radio. The radio has to be true!!!
Wow. I never saw someone made to stand in the corner, except in fiction.
In 9th grade geometry, one of the questions in the text was about using similar triangles to figure out the height of a smokestack. And the story question said that tall smokestacks drew better. Norman asked why they drew better? He didn't suggest that they didn't. A week later the teacher brought in a book and made Norman read it in front of the class, and all it said was that they drew better. Still didn't say why. I had asked the same guy -- who was at least 65 y.o. and deaf enough that in study hall, I was told kids played the radio, and he didn't seem to notice --, a question so simple I really shouldn't have asked it, but which he thought was meant to trip him up and later he wouldnt' answer another question I asked, a better one. Classmates told me to talk to the principal but a couple weeks later I stayed after school to try to patch things up. It didn't seem to work. Even though I was in the only class that had algebra 1 in the 8th grade, and thus I was, with the same kids, in what most would call honors** geometry, the year after that, at the high school, I found myself in regular algebra 2 class, instead of the honors class. I had gotten all A's in geometry, so it was his revenge.
I didn't know this had happened until 4 weeks in. Every class got the same test, even the honors class, even though they were a chapter ahead of the rest of us by then. The teacher told me I got the highest grade of all of them, and asked if I wanted to change to the x-class. So I did, I think it was in the middle of the class on Monday. On Friday was a test on that chapter. I just read the book and I got an A on that too. So revenge undone.
In college I placed out of calculus, even though I didnt' understand it until a year later, like all the math classes. Even without another class on the topic, a year later I would understand them much much better.
**They called it an X- class.
That's pretty wet. Gfretwell said that "motor oil and mineral spirits (50:50) will give it a nice patina. "
Just speciulating, what about polyurethane for floors. Satin. Would it stick? Would it work?
When I was a kid (Pluto was a pup), we had a cast iron hand pump next to the windmill driven pump for the well. My Mother complained to my Father about how bad it looked. One day my father knocked off the heaviest rust with a power wire wheel, then, he purchased a new fangled product called Rust-Oleum. 50 years later when it came time to liquidate the estate, the pump still looked great with no rust showing through. Admittedly, the Rust-Oleum he used had whale oil in it and the current products do not.
I would knock off the heavy rust, then use Rust-Oleum "rusty metal primer", then, when dry, apply a top coat with a Rust-Oleum color of your choice.
"Stormin' Norman" <
"Kurt V. Ullman"
I like Regal Red for these cast iron pumps. It turns a nice deep dark red with time.
If this is truly an antique and has never been painted, painting it will decrease the value.
It was originally painted some color of red, although the name has been lost to the sands of time. It has been painted some additional colors by previous owners (including what looks to be a rather nasty purple) but that should all come off with the brushing.
On Thu 15 Jun 2017 06:16:37a, Kurt V. Ullman told us...
I haven't been following this thread, but is this thing portable or permanently installed and not removable? If portable, the easiest solution would be to take it to a shop and have it dipped right down to the bare metal. If it's been repainted numerous times, it has litttle value as a true antique, but if you were down to bare metal you could give it a coat of perservative. Brush it with a metal brush probably won't remove every fragment of paint and a metal brush might, if fact, leave scratch marks on the surface.
Just a thought...
This is a pump that was made when the family owned the company (my great grandpa) so it is mainly just a display piece that I want to put out by my fire pit. It will go to my kids and maybe to the county historical society eventually. I am not going to restore it per se. Just get it looking a little better than now.
Kurt, do you have a picture of the pump? I would enjoy seeing it.
On Thu 15 Jun 2017 06:38:54a, Kurt V. Ullman told us...
Then that will make a nice piece of memorabilia.
We have a lot of collectibles, antiques, and family memorabilia, but no family left to leave it to.
Our intent is to have an estate sale and give the proceeds to the ASPCA.
It might be worth looking for a sand blaster in your area. That will really clean it up and they might do a little piece like that for $20-30
That's a solid idea, imho.
FWIW, I think the suggestion provided by Wayne Boatwright is your best option.
micky posted for all of us...
So you were X rated...
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