doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Peroxide and Vinegar

I have used vinegar to remove blue before. "bug juice" or Kool aid has enough acidity to remove corrosion from parts soaked in it but you will remove the bluing.

A bit OT, but what is the best way to chemically clean dark oxidation from stainless steel? Tried various acids and alkalis without much success.

Stainless steel is not rust proof, but is rust resistant. If the oxidation is rust, I would try white vinegar, and keep an eye on the parts while they are soaking.

Just an old double boiler, so not worrying about damage. Maybe its the chromium or some other element that oxidized to give the gray color. No reaction to white vinegar. No luck with muriatic acid either. Maybe I should try sulfuric outdoors?

Give molasses a try, Hal. It's a pretty strong oxidation remover. Leave it on it for several days. Won't cost much to try. If you try it I'd like to know how it worked, if at all.

304 stainless is very susceptible to chloride corrosion. Salt is a common chloride that will work on 304 pretty hard. 316 stainless is much more corrosion resistant. Bimetallic corrosion is a common cause of stainless discoloration and oxidation. Who knows what kind pots are made of. Some grades of stainless are not magnetic, some are. I may be mistaken, but I always assumed that the stainless grades that a magnet would stick to were the ones most likely to get rust specks.

Thanks. I've been adding a bit of vinegar for 30 years in this double boiler when I steam veggies. Thought it would help keep the bottom pot clean as well as add a bit of flavor. May have been a bad idea appearance-wise, but that does not bother me. Could be merely because my well water is a bit alkaline?

When I want to spiff up my stainless cookware, I buff it with an extra fine metal prep disk on a small angle grinder. Do it right and it looks great. For a while.