A member of the family has a 1930's charcoal/wood burner over which a plate and a lid sit for basically bbq'ing food. It's been handed down but the burner itself, whilst sound, is quite rusty.
A brief search on the internet brings up a reddit comment -
Pressure washer with sand-blaster lance?
I refurbed an old woodburner...ISTR I used something black and waxy where the wax kinda boiled off leaving the black behind
Not much help I am afraid,
A small word of caution: using sand for "sandblasting" was banned (commercially) a long time ago because of the risk of silicosis from the silica dust that's generated as the sand fractures. I don't know whether using water would prevent the dust from being a risk, but take precautions and consider using one of the alternatives to sand. Also, I've been warned that using sand that contains salts (e.g. beach sand) leads to corrosion because the salt grains are forced into the thing being stripped. Another reason not to use sand.
It requires kiln dried fine-grain sand such as play-pit sand or it clogs. Yes I'd wear a mask and goggles because it goes *everywhere* don't think it would work with, e.g walnut shells without a more expensive lance ...
What's wrong with a bit of rust? Given the high(ish) temperatures involved, it's just going to keep on getting rusty every time you use it.
Well actually no. given the massive reducing atmosphere inside it, it should turn back to iron :-)
For a coal / wood stove I got the best results with HG Rust Remover:
Our log burner (Clearview) came painted a very dark blue. It took several years for the paint to stop smelling the first time it was lit after a break.
As TNP mentioned the carbon monoxide which is produced in copious quantities is likely to reduce rust back to iron on the inside, but hopefully not on the outside. Phosphoric acid is a good treatment for rust as it converts the rust into an inert phosphate coating. John
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