Molasses as a Rust Remover

I saw this posted somewhere online that molasses could be used as a rust remover. Seemed pretty incredible to me, in other words I was extremely doubtful. The recipe is 2 parts water to 1 part molasses. Spread it on whatever you want to remove rust from, let it dry to a sticky mess and wait. The theory is that the molasses forms a bacteria or yeast or something that eats the rust.

I tried it on a very rusty Favorite Piqua griddle that I probably shouldn't have bought. But I'm a sucker for hopeless causes, found it in a junk shop marked $40 (Actually couldn't read what the price was and asked the guy at the counter and he told me $40 and I said I would put it back. He said he would see what he could do so I went on shopping and when I got back to the counter he asked me what I would pay for this rusty mess of a griddle (my words) and I foolishly said I could go as high as $10 and that is what he had written on the tag which he had hidden under the griddle.) I bought the griddle for $10 and have had it sitting around for about a year with quarter inch thick rust on it. The griddle has been fun to use for my experiments though.

On the sections with light rust it cleaned up nicely after several weeks of sitting around with the molasses on it. The heavy rust loosened quite a bit and could be scrapped off. This griddle may be salvageable after all. It seems very smooth so far and I'm pleased with how it is coming out. A lot of work to go on it though.

This method actually works! It took quite a while but did a fantastic job of removing the rust. Would I recommend this method, probably not, unless you had only one piece to work on every 2 or 3 months. As for removing all of your rust from multiple items at a time no way. I might use this on my Griswold Rabbit Mold.

I should have taken some before pictures so I could show you what I was dealing with and what I have now. Hindsight is 20/20. More experiments to come.

Regular Coke/Cola as a Rust Remover

My first attempt at removing rust other than hard work scrubbing by hand involves using Coke to do the work for me. It works! Light rust can be removed rather easily using Coke but it takes a while. Heavier rust takes a long, long time but it does work some on the removal of it. There seemed to be no damage at all leaving pans in the Coke for weeks. Using Coke as a rust remover can be rather expensive so it is not something you would probably want to use all the time.

Another reason using Coke for long term rust removal is not a good idea is it goes bad! It goes real bad! Using Coke long term, it smells like the local sewerage treatment plant, so again probably not a good idea for all of your rust removal. Five days later I can still smell the old rotten Coke out in the yard at quite a distance. I figured there would be no environmental impact from dumping the solution but there seems to be a impact on air quality. I didn't want to dump it in the house because it smelled so darn bad. I'm now wondering if Diet Coke won't go bad as badly.

I'll have to try Diet Coke to see if the lack of sugar makes it last longer without the awful smell. I assuming that the brown bubbly froth which was real tough to look at was caused by the sugar in the Regular Coke. Moving the container to dump the Coke out caused the bubbles to burst and that was anything but pleasant.

More experiments to come! I'll write about them when done.