On 29 Oct 2005 06:57:30 -0700, wrote:

Glenn Ashmore wrote:
Skip,

There is a way to passivate the welds after the arch is installed. I am
using a product called Citrisurf. Wrap a short length of stainless tube
with a rag, connect the + side of a 12V battery to the tube and ground the
arch. Dip the rag in the Citrisurf solution and rub it around the welds for
a few minutes.It is not as good as a real hot dipped passivation but it does
restore color and slow the rust stains. It leaves the surface a little hazy
where it has eaten away the free iron molecules but it can be shined up
again by hand with normal stainless polish.

--
Glenn Ashmore

Hi, Glenn, and thanks for the thought. How was the BVI?

Meanwhile, my SS local welder uses Lime Juice, rag wrapped, a day or so
with refreshment, to do the same thing. Would an electrical current on
the rag imporove that?

And, my objection to Wells was his inability to do what we needed, at a
comparable price to a substantially more robust rig, passivated at each
weld. His use of 304 was an incidental, as I was still headed his way
until he couldn't build "my" arch. 304, of course, is stronger, so
perhaps my upsizing resulted in similar strength at the end.

How did you do *your* passivation?

L8R

Skip, now in rehab from nasal/sinus surgery, and hoping for release to
active therapy on the shoulder next week.


Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig
http://tinyurl.com/384p2 The vessel as Tehamana, as we bought her

"There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as
simply
messing - messing-about-in-boats.

In or out of 'em, it doesn't matter. Nothing seems really to matter,
that's the charm of it.

Whether you get away, or whether you don't; whether you arrive at your
destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never
get anywhere at all, you're always busy, and you never do anything in
particular; and when you've done it there's always something else to
do, and you can do it if you like, but you'd much better not."


You will recall how similar this is to a popular, safe and effective
method of rust removal in regular steel fittings.
Connect the positive side of a battery charger to a lead or stanless
anode plate. Connect the object to the negative cathode lead,
Immerse both electrodes in a solution of baking soda or TSP
(tri sodium phosphate.)
This is cathodic reduction - the opposite of anodic coating of
aluminum - where a hard oxide layer is added.
The baking soda is much safer than acid solutions, in that it spares
the bare metal.

Brian Whatcott