What's Your Cleaning Recipe?

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Wheaton
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What's Your Cleaning Recipe?

#1

Post by Wheaton »

I think it's interesting to hear about other collectors' approaches to cleaning cans. It's all just variations on a theme, of course, but I like hearing about the nuances from one guy to the next. In the past I've picked up new ideas worth trying.

Here's my favorite homecooked approach to proofing out one case or less of toasted mystery dumpers. Note: don't use soap to pre-clean the cans! You may still get OK results but all you're really doing is reducing the effectiveness of your acid.

* * * * *

Materials: Three five-gallon buckets (two with lids), a beater kitchen measuring cup from the dollar store of your choice, a medium bristle toothbrush (usually an aisle or two away in the same dollar store), rubber gloves, oxalic acid, a sacrificial white T-shirt or large shop rag, a strip of baling wire about 4 feet long, and a stick of wood about 3 feet long.

Procedure: Fill two buckets with hot water, the third with cool water. Take these all outside somewhere. In the first hot bucket, use your wooden stick to whip in 1 to 1.5 cups of acid. In the second hot bucket, whip in somewhere between 2/3 and 1 cup of acid. Shake as much dirt out of the cans as will come out easily. Submerge them in the first (strong concentration) bucket. It should fit roughly a case of cans if you pack 'em in well. Replace the lid. Let 'em cook for about 30 minutes.

Apply your rubber gloves after the pre-soak and remove the cans from the first bucket one at a time. Make sure to drain the acid out of the cans, preserving as much of it as possible in the first bucket even though it's likely to be dirty and full of sludge. Roll the cans around in the cool water bucket and rinse out whatever garbage you missed when shaking them out the first time. Use the toothbrush to remove as much surface crud as possible. Hit all parts of the can - body, seam, and lids. Pre-soaking with strong hot acid prior to toothbrushing, I've found, helps me get more surface junk off in one sitting. It eats enough rust off to loosen up embedded sand particles, plant bits, dirt, sludge, and whatever nastiness leached on to the cans from the soil. The cool bucket will be filthy when you're done pre-cleaning all the cans, of course, but that's good because the whole idea is to keep any loose crap out of the second (weaker) hot bucket.

Submerge pre-cleaned cans in second (weaker) hot bucket. Super toasties go on the bottom, whereas anything with color or traces of a label should go closer to the top for monitoring. Once they're all in, put the lid back on. Let 'em cook for about 4 hours, checking occasionally just to satisfy your giddy curiosity.

After the first power soak, remove cans and repeat the toothbrushing procedure with the cool water bucket. Anything that looks about finished, set in one pile for a final rinse. Anything that needs further assistance, set in a separate pile. And if you do wind up with a "further assistance" pile, dump 1/2 of the solution out of your second (main) bucket. Put the T-shirt or shop rag - or whatever you want to use for a strainer - over the top of the bucket and secure it around the sides with the baling wire. Then take the first bucket with mucky strong acid in it and strain it through to the main bucket to make up the 1/2 you just dumped. Voila: potency restored, cleanliness more or less maintained, no major waste of useful solution. Put your selected cans back in. The acid has cooled at this point, but it's low on suspended sediment and that helps to keep your power-soakers from accumulating that yellowish crust we've all seen and abhor. Let 'em stew for another 4 hours.

Repeat removal and toothbrushing procedure with cool water bucket. Even though any sane person is basically done at this point, you may be a zealot and find a can or two you want to continue soaking. Repeat the T-shirt strainer thing with whatever's left of the strong acid in the first bucket, replace the cans, and continue soaking.

I've considered modifying a bucket lid with some sort of holes and a removable strainer material to use instead of the T-shirt and baling wire, just for convenience and ease of re-use. But I'm pretty lazy and that hasn't happened yet.

Guarantee: if you have unidentifiable cans after this procedure, then you're as sick as I am and you really need to up your standards while picking through dumps! Mostly, though, I've found this gives me cans that are as clean as I'm likely to get them while still preserving designs and color. In the event I do wind up with any acid crust or hazing once they're dry, I use WD40 and a toothbrush to get rid of it and also to help preserve the can.

* * * * *

What's your preferred approach?


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Re: What's Your Cleaning Recipe?

#2

Post by Rockbob »

My recipe is a bit less ambitious. First, I shake each can to death to remove dirt, plant matter and any critter that may have made a home inside. Kind of like a human paint shaker. I'll use a screwdriver to extract anything stubborn enough to remain inside the can. Then I'll rinse the can inside and out in warm water and use a toothbrush to remove the stubborn dirt. I also do not use soap. I'll use an appropriate tool to remove the larger zits off the lids, rims, and seams. A wire brush is also involved in the lids.
I have 3 containers for the cooking. However, I only nuke 4 cans at a time in each container. I fill each with scalding hot water. I use 4 heaping tablespoons of acid in each tub, more for mysteries. I'll also have a bucket with warm water for rinsing and for toothbrushing. I do not use a toothbrush while the cans are in the acid. Each can gets a unique cooking time depending on the condition of the can.
When I feel sure the can will not clean any more, I remove it from the acid, rinse in my bucket, pat dry with a towel, then give it a light coat of WD40.
For a new batch, I start fresh. I never reuse the acid or the rinse water.
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Re: What's Your Cleaning Recipe?

#3

Post by txican »

Wow, I just rinse em out with the hose throw 2 or three good scoops of acid in a five gallon bucket throw in the cans and check them in a couple of hours.
brush lightly with and old tooth brush. check them again 2 hours later if there not showing any improvement by then i usaully chunk them unless its a tough can.
mysteries ill let soak over night. most often to find out it was either a Schlitz or Falstaff. but once in a while a gem turns up.
I almost trashed my drewerys malt liqour thinking it was a red cap!
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Re: What's Your Cleaning Recipe?

#4

Post by Wheaton »

:mrgreen:

Yeah, for just a few cans it's pretty simple. Adjust acid concentration to container size and can condition, soak, polish, display.

My own insanity was developed over time as a result of bringing home boxes of mystery cans from a variety of dumps on a single trip. And I found that cleaning really old cans versus late 50s/early 60s stuff - particularly when found under different environmental conditions - sometimes meant that I needed to adjust my technique. So I got into this timed pre-cleaning and multi-bucket thing as a nice catchall method of handling whatever I might throw in on a given day, because nothing ever irked me worse than having a mix-and-match bucket of cans...ten of which cleaned well, eight of which turned yellow, and five of which bleached out or whatever. I just control it by hitting them hard for a presoak and then making sure the power soak happens in clean solution of moderate strength.

Plus, I hate wasting acid so that's where the T-shirt thing came from...
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Re: What's Your Cleaning Recipe?

#5

Post by Sea Monkey »

Great thread! I will definatly follow your advice when I try it for the first time. Thanks for the step by step documentation. (AKA Soaking for Dummies :lol: )
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Re: What's Your Cleaning Recipe?

#6

Post by eddieguitarloebs »

I would say it's a good thing to make the mixture weak if it's not heavey rust on the can...i turned what would have been about a 1- Grace Bros o.i. if i had cleaned it correctly,into a grade 2 gem :smt021 you live and you learn..so as a rule light rust,light mixture..like 1 table spoon to 4 gallons of water :smt017 :smile: unless you have a lot of experience,then you already know. :smt006
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Re: What's Your Cleaning Recipe?

#7

Post by Cap-Sealed »

Put on a pair safety glasses while you are mixing your acid... can easy splash into your eyes.... have the garden hose handy in just in case you need to flush your eyes....you only have 2 of them...protect them!
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Re: What's Your Cleaning Recipe?

#8

Post by mountainrust »

Ed, show of us a pic of you in your "ACID GOGGLES". I have some beer goggles around here somewhere! :mrgreen:
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Re: What's Your Cleaning Recipe?

#9

Post by willssoda »

Probably a dumb question but where is the best place to get some oxalis acid?
Interested in all flat and Cone Soda and Water cans.
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Re: What's Your Cleaning Recipe?

#10

Post by bantam10 »

You can get it at ace it is called wood bleach by savograin. It is in a small container though. Or you can get it at this link

http://www.chemistrystore.com/cart.cgi? ... hild=49928
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Re: What's Your Cleaning Recipe?

#11

Post by bantam10 »

I use a stew pan and fill it up with warm water and put 2 cups in. Works great for me.
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Re: What's Your Cleaning Recipe?

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Post by willssoda »

Thank you! :cool:
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Re: What's Your Cleaning Recipe?

#13

Post by plogan42 »

I generally don't bulk soak much, so what few cans I soak, its usually improving cans I pick up along the way...

I use a clear plastic container (32 oz. cashew containers w. label removed) for the gems with a screw-on lid so I can observe the can in the acid.

The container holds about a half gallon of water. I use only about 3 heaping tablespoons, and the water is room temperature.

For the first couple of hours, I watch it every 15 min. to make sure disaster isn't approaching. The clear containers allows for easy visual inspection.

I often will remove the can and brush the can in the sink, after it's been in the acid for a couple of hours and the water starts getting green. Then I re-submerge it to allow the acid to do go back to work. Sometimes, I work off the rust, layer by layer.

A chemist I used to work with said the volume of water is important, as the larger quantity of water allows for more iron leachate absorption in the solution. Otherwise, the acid simply stops working when the capacity of the water can no longer absorb any more iron, no matter how strong of a solution you're working with, or how hot the water is.

Less acid, more water, room temperature water, observe the soak (initially - first several hours), more time in solution - - this formula doesn't seem to destroy the paint, and it reduces the likelihood of mishaps.

After I get as much rust off as I can, I wash the can, and then soak if for 10min in a baking soda / water solution, to neutralize the acid (very important step). If you watch is process carefully, you will see the can literally bubble (very faint bubbles - more like a fizz) in this higher PH solution. When the absorbed acid is neutralized, it's stops fizzing.

Then I go to work on the rims, using paper over the label, and a cut-out of an aluminum can as a shield, wrapped snuggly up to the rim on the side of the can I'm working on. Using sanding sponges, I work down the rust to bare metal by hand, then use varying grades of wet/dry sandpaper, starting at 400, 600, 800, 1000, 1200, 1500.

When I need shiny mint-state rims, I then progress to 2000 grit wet/dry sandpaper. All of this is done wet.

Rims glean, and they don't look like they got hit with the bench grinder.

Same procedure on the tops and bottoms.

Seams - I use a cut-out of an aluminum can to cover all of the entire painted face, leaving only the seam exposed. Then I use a Dremel with a abrasive 120 grit sanding wheel, and then 400 sandpaper (wet). Turns out ok.

For nodules: For those spots of rust on the can that you want gone without having to risk ruining the can by soaking for an eternity, I tear off a bit of sponge and hot-glue the sponge over the nodule (or rust spot). Point the can down over a tray, and securing the can with some lab stands I have, I then frequently wet the sponge with a syringe (say every hour). The sponge keeps the spot in constant contact with the sponge. After a day or so, the nodule or problem spot is ready to scrub or sand down. Nodules are like warts. The goal is to cut it down to surface (using sandpaper) and this sponge trick helps keep the nodule wet with oxalic solution, which gradually weakens it. Friend of mine in FL who does museum restoration work showed me this trick. It works. He does this on old iron objects they are restoring, as it doesn't require the whole object to be soaked for days on end (and with cans, that will torch the paint).

Anyway.......everyone has their methods......these are some of mine.

Later
pat


Good luck.

Pat

:smt028
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