Cleaning up steel after silver soldering

[Peter Simpson 1Participant @petersimpson1]

I have fabricated the cross stays for my 5" gauge BR Standard Class 2 loco. Having silver soldered one of them, what is the best method to clean the steel up prior to priming them ? Is there any way of pickling them ?

[Peter Simpson 1Participant @petersimpson1]

[Roderick JenkinsParticipant @roderickjenkins93242]

Following advice from JasonB, I've just pickled a steel fabrication in neat brick cleaner. Worked very well, it removed the flux residue and black oxide.

Rod

[Tim StevensParticipant @timstevens64731]

The most often recommended solution for this is Citric Acid – which you buy as a powder and dissolve in water. It is relatively harmless to life, so not nasty to use. A search on the web will find supplies, and advice about concentrations, temperature, etc.

Hope this is a start to an answer – Tim

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Citric if you have all weekend to make one part, Brick Cleaner if you want to get on with the job as it only needs about 1/2hr in the acid and is also far more effective at removing Tenacity and HT5 flux than the citric.

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