What i didn t realize was the shear potentcy of the acid fumes. That **** is nasty and can be trcky to work with. I learned to never use it inside either. Fumes alone can flash rust every thing metal in your shop thats not coated
Talk about learning the hard way! Yeah, the fumes, the gasses, all of it will do what it does - and acid is an oxidizer so it will MAKE rust - that's why the neutralizing step is SO important.
TSP seems to be used by folks who are using muriatic to clean knife blades of heat treat scale. The phosphate in the TSP reacts with the iron to make an iron phosphate - it would make a very good final rinse/cleanse prior to drying and should prevent the flash rust for a few days and even help prep the surface for primer.
