Steel “crud” removal

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60jerry

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Location
Denver, CO
Any steel I buy has a dark layer of something. I’d like to make the surfaces to be clean raw steel for some projects. For years I’ve been using the grinder with a coarse wire wheel, but it’s time consuming and not all that efficient. I do sometimes use my belt sander and that method removes a lot of steel since most square tubing and other dimensional steel is not necessarily actually flat. Is there some chemical that cuts that crap. I tried metal prep and it removes some, but it is still slow. Lacquer thinner just takes off oil and dust. I’m too damned old to spend so much time cleaning steel surfaces. Ideas would be nice.
Jerry in Denver
 
hot or cold rolled? hot rolled takes something with a good bite to clean the mill scale. cold rolled cleans up good with the good nylon cup brushes. the HF ones don't last too long but i have one of these on a 7" grinder, and it takes all the crud off
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kursplat said:
hot or cold rolled? hot rolled takes something with a good bite to clean the mill scale. cold rolled cleans up good with the good nylon cup brushes. the HF ones don't last too long but i have one of these on a 7" grinder, and it takes all the crud off
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Mill scale, that’s what it’s called. Frankly, I have no idea whether I’m using hot or cold rolled. I usually go to the steel store and raid their scrap department. This store does fabrication so some of 6heir scrap is beautiful stuff but no mention of hot or cold. I’ll be going there, hopefully next week, and I’ll be asking if they can advise me. I’ll be trying that HF nylon cup—when I get balls enough to go into one of their crowded stores. Thanks for the suggestion. I needed that.
Jerry
 
I'll have to post a before and after of my project.
I put an upper control arm in a oil drain pan with a gallon of vinegar last weekend. The 52 year old rust was flaking off. I'll get a pic of the left and right side by side tomorrow.
 
Vinegar should cut through hot rolled mill scale. Give it a good soak. Cold rolled really doesn’t have much surface scale.
 
The results of one week of soaking in vinegar. Some of the UCA was not cleaned since one gallon didn't fully submerge it. What remains should come off pretty easy when I sandblast it.

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