Oxalic Acid

[sailaway21]

Oxalic acid is frequently used to bleach or "brighten" teak. If you peddle down to your local WM they will sell you some at about the price you paid for the teak. We Dutch are on a perpetual quest to find these products before they have been repackaged, or "marineized", and marked up in price. It isn't always easy.

Looking for ozalic acid at the local hardware and big box stores reveals myriad products for similar jobs, very few with the ingredients listed. If they are listed, they usually consist of "a special blend of unobtainium and rare virgin what's that".

In this case, the local Home Depot, or Dutch Marina, had Wolman's Fence and Deck Brightner and Restorer containing, lo and behold, oxalic acid. 1 gallon=$15. A brief perusement of the WM catalog reveals a substantial savings, and application revealed it works. A gallon appears to be about a lifetime supply unless you are TrueBlue and decide to let things go to pot!(g)

[JimsCAL]

My local hardware store sells the oxalic acid crystals in a box for about $5. Makes over about 2 gallons. That's $2.50 a gallon! I use it to periodically dissolve the scale in the water passages of my Univeral 5411 raw water cooled diesel.

[tdw]

Also very good for removing stains in paintwork such as rust marks.