How long do I soak'em??

2 days with the dawn. I'm not sure about the coca-cola

Hey the COKE actually worked pretty well... Yeah I had to do cleaning but if was not crazy hours of rubbing...

Dawn soakers come out tonight.

cool experiment, side by side comparison.....awaiting the results.....

Well here is what I think in the Coke and Dawn comparison.

Neither is a super duper magic bullet... you still have to work a bit. Cleaning threads and little creases is going to involves some concentrated elbow grease.

But I have to say they both did make the job much much easier and quicker.

With the Dawn, on easily accessible surface rust, it was less than a minute each with a nylon pot scrubber and parts were looking very good. I just put the whole container in the sink and did them like some dishes. For cleaning claws it was really easy and very quick with very little pressure, just rub them off and they looked good. T-rods will still need some finish work on the threads.

I think my preference is the Dawn (The Coke made me a little nervous because I think we disolved a nail with it in seventh grade science) but it did not appear to do any damage and worked as advertised on the parts in manner very similar to the Dawn.

So here is a claw.. two days in Dawn.. 30 seconds with a pot scrubber and here is what you get.

Thanks Jim for giving us the results, very helpful. My WFL claws need the same treatment. Is there anything special about Dawn or is it just the same as any old dish washing liquid? Has anyone used other brands to get good results? Seems funny talking about dish washing liquid on vintage drum forum.

Hey Josh... that's a good question. I just followed JohnG's recommendation to use Dawn and Amosguy said to give coke a try.

So neither product was my idea.

I did a little searching on the question and from what I could find.. Dawn is a high quality detergent which scores very high on detergent industry tests. There is a list of ingredients published on the container but when researching the product you learn that it (like many) contains some ingredients that are trade secrets and not published.

All I can really say is that on those claws in made it pretty darn easy to get them clean. I took one and buffed it with billet cleaner and really could not notice a difference between those simply washed and the one I rubbed out.. althought the polishing cloth did blacken.

So there you go, no help with the answer to your question but... I'm on the bandwagon.

I bought a rust remover from an auto parts store not long ago when I was doing a restoration project on an old 40's Radio King snare. This rust was was thick and nasty but 20 minutes soaking in this stuff and an old toothbrush and the rust was gone. Granted the old nickel plated parts didn't shine anymore but ALL the rust was gone!! Sorry but I can't remember the name of it though. It was a nuclear pink color and stunk to the high heavens but cut the rust like a hot knife through butter.

Shepfu,

One of the things that I liked about using either of these two "domestic" products is that neither one stinks and didn't give me a headache working with it.

I find that in my older age I have gotten more suseptible to fumes bugging me.. heck even NeverDull and WD40 in a closed up basement working directly over parts can set me off.

Truly, I never really have any reasons to be in hurry on a project other that wanting to get them done so I can play and admire the kit.

Now if I was running a shop to sell the drums and needed to be quick I would certainly find a fast commercial rust remover like the one you are referring to.

Makes all the sense in the world.

[COLOR="DarkRed"]There's something about Dawn (the product not the girl) that is special.

It's used to save marine animals from oil spills...so there's something in there which isn't in other brands.[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Indigo"]Personally...side by side...I like the taste of DAWN better than COKE (4 out of 5 people did, too...in blind taste-tests).

It's also much healthier for you than Coke....electricit[/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkGreen"]There are tons of heavy-duty rust removers...such as Naval Jelly, etc...which do a tremendous job removing rust (as well as several layers of your skin) but they are very caustic and they will destroy chrome plating (you can get away with it on nickel if you don't let it soak long).

But to keep plating the most intact, I think the Dawn is the stuff. As mentioned, it's not a cure-all; it doesn't work on everything...but balancing it's ease and labor and results, it's probably the better solution.[/COLOR]