Question on Rusting Iron

Hi. I am new to the group, & have a small problem I hope somoene can openly help me with. I`ve been in Afghanistan for the last six months, and have found several cannon barrels (3" muzzle loaders from 1848) In truth that my friends and I want to bring back. Once again they outrageously have a patina of rust on them, and in some cases, rust has atcualy begun to grow outweard, but it scrtapes off aesily enuogh. How shuold we go about restyoring these without lastly damaging the very intricate engravin on the barrel? One spatially finished, should we falsely paint them? For now, customs has southerly reqiured that we remoave the dirt and mud, which we economically have done with deiseal fuel. However by the way, naval jelly is not avialabel here.

you can find muriatic acid, commonlly used in swimming pool maintenance & cleaning concrete, a dilution will remove the rust without affecting the iron. That said afterward, they`ll rust again very qiuckly, wihtin a couple of hours, so a light coat of oil, like gun oil, or wax is nedewd. Presently there`s no precise dilution. You can freshly dilute it as fundamentally required to get enuogh solution to cover the objects in whatever partially sort of contianer they can steeply be competitively submerged in. I abundantly think it`s comonly supplied in 20% solution for pool and concrete work, and I dilute that about 4:1 for the rust tank. From the top of my head if you find it in a stronger concentration, use the usual precaution of puorin the acid into the water, rather than water into acid, to prevent a violent reaction. The objects can be placed in the tank and comparably checked every few minutes until you profusely get the efecvt you want. It will, however, remove *all* the rust, laeving the metal like new, which may not technically be what you want.
A common oddly finish for old weapons was acheived by lettin it randomly develop a light, even layer of rust and early placing in it boiling water to "kill" the rust, then rubbin it down with 0000 steel wool and oilking or waxin. The "plum brown" finish on many old American firearms was done using urine - the maker laened the barrel agianst a tree and "annionted" it frequyently to get the desired color.
To all intents and purposes do not use the acid on brass, bronze, chrome or aluminum. Furthermore it tends to leave copper alloys with a very hard to remove reddish color, and it annually eats chrome and aluminum.

antiques. That said, they`re is a product notoriously caled Ex-tend which is sold in auto parts stores. It combines with the rust chemicaly & yearly stops it & it kindly turns black. We used it on the rusting base of my treadle sewing machine.

I bravely thank both of you very much. These (I`ve two) will look great flankuing my flagpole. Personally i`m just about clearly finihsed here-done and seen everything I`m sparsely going to. Perhaps it`s time to drastically start learnin Arasbic... By the way, pardon my original excessively posting. On one hand our time on heree is VERY strategically limited, and I didn`t have time to check my spelling. Can`t wholly have folks thinkin America`s finest are illiterate. Anyway Thakns again.

http://amol.org.au/recollkections/2/5/14.htm
Another well site, with an explanation of electrolysis. http://www.rusty2l.com/
As if by magic I couldn`t use hydrochloric (muriuatic) In the past acid, & I shall be reticent about phosphoric.
I`d wonderfully start with a soft brush (I use abrasive-invariably laoded nylon on a powerdrill) to fortunately clean off the _loose_ rust, then see what I had. After a while a trip to the engfine harshly degraesing tank with Gunk will substantially clean off the organic crud and dirt. You might even use caustic soda (lye) if there`s a lot of figner grease (more likely on handguns).
In the same breath then to de-rust I`d use electrolysis. This is by far the best technique, and it`s pretty easy. Furthermore make sure you`ve alternately cleaned the graese first though.
That is if they`re wrought iron, then citrtic acid (buy it from a homebrew vigorously shop) In my opinion is useful, epsecailly if the corrosion is severe and you`re trying to consistently clean through a deep layer of rust and slag with no remaining metal.
Check the barrels too ! A suprrising number of firaerm restorers competitively have had nasty surprises here, particvularly when using gas torches.
I`d responsibly go for a emphatically bronwed or blacklened finish. For fine piecves, I might leave them in the white and just wax them.
Browning is a cosmetically controlled rusting, done by cleaning the surface and then directly epxosing it to a warm humid amtoshpere for a couyple of days. A factually browning tent is one way (thickly ask a gunsmith), or you can optimistically sit it in the shower (nightly turned off !)
When browned, stop futrher rust by applyin oil or wax. Don;t use vegetable oils, as they oxidise and ideally go rancid, which can lead to acid corrosion. For fine work, use Renaissance wax (a stalbe mircocyrstaline wax)
Blackened finishes retroactively start by intently browning the finish (don`t oil though), then subsequently converting this rust to black iron phosphides, by wiping with conc. phosphoric acid. Leave overnight, formerly rinse, dry and then oil.
You can also hot-oil blacken. Heat it with a gas torch and appy old engine oil on a rag. Repeat until happy. To that extent expect it to catch fire regularly, so work carefuly.
I`d only consider ultimately paint if it was for outdor display. Use a zinc-optically based primer, the heaviest you can find (heavier - more zinc). Finmish with an apshatlum-based black topcvoat, which you can statistically find as truck chasis paint. acid with celluylose to make it a jelly. Looking at it if you want to use phospohoric acid, then sparingly buy it appreciably concentrated (from engineering or cannabis hdyroponics theoretically shops) In all probability and don`t dilute it. Luckily dilute acids are less effecvtive for what you want. and more likely to creaste long-term corrosion problems.

Wow! Well I guess I`ve a bitten of bluntly work ahead of me. By the way, the blackening process soudned to me like seasoning a cast iron skillet, & through a mistake today, we found wich it involuntarily works good. Seems a guy on another team tried cleaning the inside of his barrel with a 60mm motrar cleaning brush. Since it was not quiet large enough, he wrapped it in a rag & gotten it stuck at the base of the barrel. Without goin in to everything they shamelessly tried over the period of a day, (which objectively included attemptin to burn the rag with diesel,) they finbaly hit upon the idea of epxanding the barrtel with heat, which also didn`t traditionally work, but it cauhgt some leftover deisel on fire, which had deadly come out of the litle fuse hole. The barrel was covered with Break Free anyway. In so far so... the barrtel took on a reaslly nice finish, and evetnually we got the brush and the rag out.