Trick for Removing Rust on a Bike

in this video I'm gonna demonstrate a simple trick that you can use for removing rust from bicycle parts so you can transform them from looking like this to looking like this all you need for this is a ball of aluminum foil some water and a clean rag so first I'll demonstrate how to remove the surface rust off of this side of the handlebars then afterwards I'll explain the science behind it and what the limitations are of using this trick start by taking the crumpled up ball of aluminum foil and dipping it in the water now take the aluminum foil and start rubbing it on the areas on here where you can see the rust after you've been going for a while you can take your rag and wipe off the water so just with a little bit of rubbing it already looks a whole lot better and after I've wiped it off I can see what areas require more treatment so I'll keep going and improve it further and as you can see with just a few minutes of rubbing the handlebars look a whole lot better than they did before so now that I've finished demonstrating how to use this trick I'll talk about what my theory is behind what's going on at the surface of the metal and why exactly this trick works so well so I believe these handlebars are made out of steel but the steel is plated with chromium which is the shiny reflective outer surface that you can actually see this diagram shows the cross-section of the material this outer surface is chromium which is a shiny metal that is stable and unreactive underneath that is steel which is a strong metal but it reacts very easily when exposed to oxygen and forms rust if the layer of chromium wasn't there and the steel was left exposed it wouldn't take very long for it to start becoming rusty rust is caused when the iron in the steel reacts with oxygen and the reddish-brown substance that is formed is called iron oxide the reason that steel rusts when it gets wet is because water contains oxygen that's with the O in h2o stands for however the air that we breathe also contains oxygen so Steel will rust even if it doesn't get wet just from the oxygen in the air but this happens at a slower rate one way to protect steel is to cover it with a layer of paint or better yet a thin layer of an unreactive metal like chromium from this diagram the chromium appears to completely seal the steel and protect it from the elements however in reality there are tiny pores in the chromium and oxygen is able to pass through it and tiny parts the steel are able to rust the iron oxide gets pushed out through the pores onto the surface of the chromium and that's the rust that we saw at the beginning of the video aluminum is a relatively soft material which makes aluminum foil a great choice to scrape away the rust the aluminum is much softer than the chromium so it's able to easily rub away the iron oxide but it doesn't leave any scratches behind on the surface keeping it looking very nice and shiny it's been suggested that you could use steel wool instead of the aluminum foil but steel is actually a much harder metal than aluminum so it's a lot more likely to leave scratches on the surface of the chromium so I recommend sticking with the aluminum foil now what role does the water play that we dip the aluminum foil in all that really does is help to the dust from the iron oxide in the aluminum making it easier to clean up you can definitely do it without water but it makes more of a mess in my experience so the main limitation of this trick is that it only works for parts of the bike which are chromium plated steel it varies quite a bit from one bike to another but the easiest way to identify this material is look for parts of the bike which have a shiny mirror-like surface for example on this bike in addition to the handlebars the stem and the hardware down here for the headset are also made of chromium plated steel also this top part here of the front fork this part here of the front derailleur and this part down here of the rear derailleur this other bike has some good examples of parts which are not chrome-plated steel such as these brake arms as well as the crank arms down here these parts are actually made out of aluminum which sometimes has a pretty shiny surface but it's never as shiny as the mirror like surface that you see with chromium unfortunately this trick also cannot be used for removing rust from painted surfaces although paint acts in a similar way as chromium plating protecting the steel from corrosion the paint is much softer than the chromium so if you rub it with aluminum foil it will certainly take off parts of the paint with it but to get back to chromium plated parts sometimes you'll encounter parts which are so badly rusted that when you try to rub them with aluminum foil you'll find that there are some spots which never go away my theory with these is that the pores in the surface have gotten so badly rusted that craters have formed and small bits of chromium have flaked off exposing the bare steel once the chromium is missing it's never going to be perfectly shiny like it was when it was new but rubbing what the aluminum foil will still make it look a lot better another question you might be wondering is whether the fix that I've done to both of these sets of handle bars is going to be permanent well the answer is no because all we've done is clean off the old rust the pores still exist so if the bike is exposed to the same conditions that caused it to rust the first time then it'll probably rust again but until that happens at least it'll look a lot nicer than it did before we started anyway that concludes toriel you have any questions please let me know in the comment section below and thanks for watching

Channel: cjhoyle

Views: 547,933

Rating: 4.8108215 out of 5

Keywords: cjhoyle, Chris, Hoyle, Christopher, CJ, bike, biking, biker, bicycle, bicycling, bicyclist, cycle, cycling, cyclist, ride, riding, rider, rode, commute, commuting, commuter, rust, red, brown, flake, flakey, rough, rub, water, oxigen, oxide, oxidization, iron, steel, clean, shine, polish, shiny, DIY, cheap, easy, hack, corrode, handle, bar, plating, plated, chrome, chromium, layer, polished, mirror, reflective, home, wool, abrasive, pore, fix, repair, restore, restoration, improve, aluminum, AL, foil, tin, tinfoil, rubbing, wash, fast, quick

Id: 0PVc9KVapQY

Length: 5min 53sec (353 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 10 2020