fulloflead’s Great Rust Experiment II

fulloflead

fulloflead

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May 3, 2002
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fulloflead’s Great Rust Experiment II (See Part I that I did a few years ago here)

Tested Products: (Phase 1)
Tuff Cloth (well used, but recharged with Tuffglide for this experiment)
Marine Tuff Cloth - in brand new condition
Breakfree CLP - Newly opened bottle, well shaken
Birchwood Casey Sheath* - in aerasol spray can
Mpro7 Gun Oil
Prolix
Militec

(I started to include White Lightening but ended up nixing it because I didn’t have enough bars. I switched the label on this bar to Tuff Cloth before the experiment as you can see in one of the photos.)

***Special thanks to Chuck Bybee who shipped me all this steel, free of charge, so I could do this experiment. It’s 15N20 which is a carbon steel.***

SETUP:

I washed each bar 7 seconds with concentrated dish detergent and vegetable brush and rinsed. They were dried between clean dish towels.
I mixed a solution of 1 cup table salt/gallon tap water at 114 degrees and allowed to cool. It was just slightly warm to the touch at the time I added the solution to the steel bars.

My supplies:


My assistant:


Pre-cleaning the steel bars:


Drying between clean towels:


Preparing the solution:



Labeling the bars:


Nixing the White Lighting:



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Procedure:

With the exception of the Tuff Cloths, I dribbled the protectant onto each bar and spread it around thoroughally with it's own Q-tip, then wiped each surface of each bar twice with a paper towel, leaving a light film just as I would if I were applying the protectant to a knife before putting it away for long-term storage. With the Tuff Cloth and Marine Tuff Cloth, I just wiped the bars thoroughally with each and left them. With the Sheath, I sprayed the bars thoroughally, allowed the excess to drip off for a few seconds until there were no more drips and then wiped each surface twice. I did this with two bars for each product and left one bar untreated as a control. I was careful to touch the bars only from the labeled end.

Then, I took half the bars (one of each product) and scrubbed them with a paper towel to simulate knife friction and use: I cut paper towels into pieces and used a fresh piece for each bar, washing my hands thoroughally in between. Each bar received 20 wipes on each surface with heavy strokes (as if I was trying to wipe water spots off a butter knife). These bars became “Group 2” of the experiment, while the bars that were coated but left un-wiped-off are “Group 1”.

Finally, I added the water at around 12:30 at night, and went to bed.

Dribbled it on, spread with Q-tip, then wiped twice:


15 full tubs - 7 of each product coated, 7 coated and scrubbed, one untreated control:


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Around noonish the next day I shook off each bar and took the first results pictures. With 12 hours having passed, I was disappointed that nearly the entire experiment was mostly just corrosion carnage with a few notible exceptions:

Breakfree CLP Group 1 - mostly protected with some rust on the edges
Marine Tuff Cloth Group 1 - almost untouched by rust and tarnish with only a few spots. Amazing.
Birchwood Casey Sheath Group 1- appears fully tarnished, but closer inspection reveals that it’s much lighter than the others (except the above two) and nearly perfect on the back side.

I regret that having left the bars for the long 12-hour initial period, the bars, for the most part, were completely rusted. I immediately began planning a second phase of testing with a shorter period of time and fewer wipe strokes. (More on that later.)

There was one notable unusual result I wasn’t expecting:
It appeared, after 12 hours, that the Group 2 Tuff Cloth was actually protected a little better than unwiped Group 1 Tuff Cloth bar.

Results were checked and photos again taken at various incriments. At 24 hours, there was still some indication that the Group 2 Tuff Cloth was protecting better than Group 1. Breakfree CLP, Marine Tuff Cloth and Sheath all progressively, but slowly became more corroded.

I’ll let the photos tell the rest of the story of PHASE I of this experiment and then we’ll move on to PHASE II:

12hrs Breakfree:


12hrs Mar.Tuf.:


12hrs Sheath:


12hrs Tuf-cloth:



24hrs Breakfree:


24hrs control:


24hrs Mar.Tuf.:


24hrs Tuf-Cloth:



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36hrs Breakfree:


36hrs control:


36hrs Mar.Tuf.:


36hrs Mar.Tuf.Close:


36hrs Sheath Back:


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44hrs Breakfree:


44hrs Mar.Tuf.:


44hrs Sheath back:


44hrs Sheath front:


46hrs Breakfree:


46hrs Mar.Tuf.Close:


46hrs Sheath Back:


46hrs Sheath Front:


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58hrs Breakfree:


58hrs Mar.Tuf.Back:


58hrs Mar.Tuf.:


58hrs Sheath back:


58hrs Sheath front:


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62hrs Breakfree:


62hrs Mar.Tuf.:


62hrs Sheath back:


62hrs Sheath front:


71hrs Mar.Tuf.:


71hrs Sheath back after being left turned over for last 9hrs.:




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After 36 hours, I began a new experiment: I removed and cleaned up all samples except Group 1 bars for Breakfree CLP, Marine Tuff Cloth and Sheath, which were the only ones left that weren’t too far gone to give me any useful data.

PHASE II: (Group 3)

I washed each plastic tub, washed each bar and then took a scotch brite wheel on my dremil tool and scrubbed 5 bars clean again and to an equal and uniform finish.

The “CONTROL” bar was cleaned the same as every other bar, but has no protectant to see how an unprotected bar of steel would behave.

I then coated, as before, each bar with the 4 best products plus a control:
Breakfree CLP
Tuff Cloth
Marine Tuff Cloth
Birchwood Casey Sheath
Plain (control)


I let each one set, untouched, for about 10 mintues before wiping each with it’s own clean paper towl, washing my hands well between each and being careful to handle from the label-end of the bar only. I wiped each bar medium hard (about like I was trying to wipe peanutbutter off a butter knife). Each surface of each bar received 8 such strokes. I chose 8 because I worked on the Breakfree bar first and 8 strokes was when the bar first appeared to not be wet, so I applied the same standard to the remaining 4 samples.

Water was added and time was marked. I used the same solution of 1 cup table salt per gallon of hot water. Water was allowed to cool until it was only warm, not hot.

Start time 5:00pm.


First check 6:30pm: (time passed=1:30) no changes

Second check 8:35pm: (time passed=3:35)
control:


two rust spots on Tuffcloth:


uniform rusting on Breakfree CLP:


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Third check 10:04pm: (time passed=5:04)
control:


Breakfree shows several agressive rust spots:


Tuff Cloth’s spots have grown slightly:


Marine Tuff Cloth shows a very small stain along one edge:


Sheath shows some very small dotted stains along one edge:


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Fourth check 9:52am: (time passed=14:52)
control:


Breakfree has a light, but fairly-uniform coating of rust:


Tuffcloth shows no significant deterioration from the last check 12 hours ago:


Martuff still looks the same:


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Fifth check 2:03pm: (time passed=18:03)
control:


Breakfree rust is a little thicker and heavier:


Spots on Tuff Cloth are larger, a few more spots are visible. These are more dark stains than actual rust:


The stain along the edge of the Marine Tuff Cloth is slightly wider:


Sheath is now showing a sizable patch of staining and rusting:


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Sixth check 11:02pm: (time passed=27:02)
Rust is taking over the Tuff Cloth bar:


The Marine Tuff Cloth and Sheath bars have the same areas of corrosion except much darker.


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Seventh check 12:30am: (time passed=50:32)
Tuff Cloth is down for the count:


No significant change in the others:
Sheath:


Mar.Tuf.:


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Conclusions:
1. No product survived HEAVY wiping (20 strokes) and immersion for 12 hours.
2. Breakfree CLP performed head-and-shoulders over all but Sheath* and Marine Tuff Cloth, only edging those out slightly, when it came to applying a light film and leaving it untouched. Breakfree CLP does wipe off more easily than some of the compeditors. Later, when left submerged for EXTENDED periods of time, Breakfree fell behind Sheath* and Marine Tuff Cloth.
3. TuffCloth APPEARS to perform a little better after some wiping; perhaps it get’s “rubbed in” or something causing it to protect a little better than when just a topical treatment is applied, but still doesn’t perform as well as two others when wiped. When not wiped, it performs well, but is edged out by Breakfree and falls far behind Sheath and Marine Tuff Cloth.
4. Marine Tuff Cloth and Sheath* are easily the top performers when asked to protect after handling, friction, etc., with Marine Tuff Cloth,clearly, being the best in this arena.
5. There is a strange anomoly where the top side and bottom sides of the bars would behave differently. Specifically, the bottom of the Sheath bar held off corrosion much better, while the bottom of the Marine Tuff Cloth bar suffered slightly more than the top. I speculate that there are two things happening. I believe salt settles out of the solution onto the bars, causing their upper surfaces to receive a higher salt concentration. I also wonder if the contact points on the back of the bars, where it touches the plastic creates some added friction or, perhaps, a gathering/concentration of salts.

Author’s Choice:
Clearly, Marine Tuff Cloth is king. I see many packets of Marine Tuff Cloth in my on-line shopping cart in the future. However, I wish there were a “liquid” version of Marine Tuff Cloth in additon to the cloth version (like Tuff Glide charges the Tuff Cloth) to use for recharging and as a stand-alone lubricant.

* A note about Birchwood Casey Sheath: Many products say on the label: “Use in well ventilated area.” Mostly I (we) ignore such warnings. For example: Hoppes gun solvent has the same warning, but we’ve all used it in our garages, basements, gun rooms, etc. However, Sheath is a notable exception. From my actual personal experience Sheath® is actually very harmful to breath. No “hobby” chemical, including carborator cleaner, is as harmful to breathe as Sheath is. Sheath WILL make you sick! It will happen very quickly, too. I’ve actually used it outside, in a partially-enclosed patio, and still gotten sick from the fumes of Sheath. It makes me nautious any time I don’t use it in a WELL ventilated area. I’ve actually gotten puking sick, and even lost my balance and nearly fallen down from breathing the fumes from Sheath. Although Sheath did well in these tests I, personally, would choose a lesser product because of the safety issues I believe Sheath presents. Beware!

.
 
Way cool! Too bad we don't use brownie points anymore... you deserve some of those green chicklets for this ^-^
 
A great experiment under controlled conditions. Extremely well done.

Thanks for taking all the time and trouble to do it.
 
Thanks for taking the time to share that with us. I was actually planning a similar experiment, but I'm a cheap-ass so I sent e-mail to Sentry Solutions and Militec for samples to conduct my experiment with. I will say, even though the Militec-1 didn't work very well as a rust inhibitor, I must commend them for standing behind their product. 4 days after requesting a sample I had a bottle in my mailbox. Sentry Solutions on the other hand, added me to their spam list and never even responded. Further attempts to contact were greeted by messages from their Spam-blocker. Because of this, I'll never purchase their product. At the very least, they could have sent me an e-mail with an apologetic denial. I was planning on posting the experiment here for all to see - and it probably would have helped sell a few bottles. Do you think they're afraid of how well their product would fare against the competition - or were they just being greedy with their supply?

Shao

edited for meanness
 
Jim, great work and interesting conclusions. Remind me to pick up a pack of Marine Tuff Cloth the next time I swing by the hardware store. ;)
 
VERY nice experiments! Thanks for sharing! I will pick up some marine tuff-cloth as well.
 
Great info and pictures.

Now if you used Budweiser instead of saltwater how would the test come out? Use regular Coca Cola?

Maybe I missed it but how did the "Mil-tec" or "Militech" do in the test?
 
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