stainless steel cleaning

[noelani]

hi everybody i have just arrived back in the USA to find rust stains on the stainless steel. i remembered somebody mentioning a cleaning chemical on this forum. does anybody remember what it was?

[mitiempo]

Spotless Stainless Home - Spotless Stainless Removes Rust, Protects Stainless Steel

[sawingknots]

i've alwas just used a regular fiberglass cleaner-wax,works for me and i usually have some onboard anyway

[SloopJonB]

Autosol

[QuickMick]

Ive found most cleaners dont live up to the advertisements... lol, but I have had pretty good luck with Naval jelly... insert link here: Phosphoric acid - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
but would note that it is VERY caustic, so if your surface isnt actually 316 or whatever but chromed/plated it very well may eat your plating off of what you are trying to clean.
good luck
Q

[SloopJonB]

Originally Posted by QuickMick

Ive found most cleaners dont live up to the advertisements... lol, but I have had pretty good luck with Naval jelly... insert link here: Phosphoric acid - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
but would note that it is VERY caustic, so if your surface isnt actually 316 or whatever but chromed/plated it very well may eat your plating off of what you are trying to clean. good luck Q

Good luck indeed - Naval Jelly is a corrosion dissolver, not a polish. AFAIK, phosphoric acid is THE strongest acid there is.

If you don't believe me, check out the first season episode of Breaking Bad when Jessie fails to follow Walt's advice and tries to dissolve the villain at home in a bathtub of phosphoric. Hilarious if you enjoy black (VERY black) humour. Also a pretty good dramatization of the power of phosphoric.

I stand by my recommendation for Autosol - try it.

Edit: My comments about Phosphoric acid are incorrect - It was Hydrofluoric acid I was thinking of - it will dissolve GLASS. The other comments stand.

[mitiempo]

Naval Jelly is a rust remover, not a polish, as Sloop posted.

[Charlie B]

I use Turtle Wax's Chrome Polish, available at WalMart. (of all places) It works great, as it's designed to dissolve rust and it's a polish as well. I have used it on some very rust stained stainless, by the way and it's fast without a lot of rubbing.