Scientific Experiment.

[New Leaf]

I was bored when i was meant to be working earlier today so i nipped down to the garage and set up a little experiment. I've got 3 pieces of steel wool sitting in beakers of salty water.

One is just bare wool, one is sprayed with WD40, and one is sprayed with acf-50. I'm so excited - i can't wait to see if they rust - or not.

Would anyone like daily updates on how they turn out?

Or do you all just think i'm a sad bar steward? :study::study::study:

[the white rabbit]

I bet they all do, but yes please.

[Stu]

How well did you spray them? steel wool would have a huge surface area to cover properly, and did you let it dry properly first?

On the edge of my seat waiting for updates.

[/sarcasm]


no seriously! ;)

[Jester666]

Minute by minute please!!

[sarah]

Are each of the pieces of steel wool completely submerged in the salty water?

[stewie]

Can you set up a webcam please ? ;)

[Richie]

You can also use the Pointy Sv in the same sort of experiment,
Simply ride it through one winter and watch it rust in the following Spring, Summer and Autum...

[Warthog]

I don't want to pick holes in your experiment, but rust needs oxygen to develop, so you might have to keep dumping them in and pulling them out every 30 mins. Just think of ships and planes under the ocean, they are not rusty, just covered in barnacles ;)

[sarah]

Are each of the pieces of steel wool completely submerged in the salty water?

I don't want to pick holes in your experiment, but rust needs oxygen to develop, so you might have to keep dumping them in and pulling them out every 30 mins. Just think of ships and planes under the ocean, they are not rusty, just covered in barnacles ;)

That was my point!

[the white rabbit]

I don't want to pick holes in your experiment, but rust needs oxygen to develop, so you might have to keep dumping them in and pulling them out every 30 mins. Just think of ships and planes under the ocean, they are not rusty, just covered in barnacles ;)

So steel wont rust when completely submerged in decently oxygenated water? I'm no chemist but I am surprised by that. Why paint hulls with layer upon layer of thick paint?

[Stu]

To keep the barnacles off!
Seriously it's anti fouling paint


On a wooden or fibreglass yacht anyway, don't know about metal.

[hovis]

im not that intrested in this experiment, as i dont have a suzuki

:geek:

[New Leaf]

i would have thought that their would be plenty air trapped in between all the little strands of steel. also the water isn't distilled or boiled or anything so will have plenty of oxygen in it.

[the white rabbit]

To keep the barnacles off!
Seriously it's anti fouling paint


On a wooden or fibreglass yacht anyway, don't know about metal.

Yes, the antifouling properties are important but I am still surprised. Like Adburn says, I think there could well be enough air in there, the classic experiment ususally used boiled water. I would have thought at shallow depths steel will rust. Canons and stuff are rusty when hauled up usually are they not?

[northwind]

I did the same test with 3 manky old nuts which I rubbed down first. The ACF one didn't rust at all all winter, and the other two fell down the back of the shed.

[Warthog]

Yeah ok they do rust, but not half as fast! Just thought if you wanted an experiment that was quicker than a year :-P

[Richie]

So steel wont rust when completely submerged in decently oxygenated water? I'm no chemist but I am surprised by that. Why paint hulls with layer upon layer of thick paint?


agreed... and why to ship builders place huge lumps of Zinc along the hulls that attracts the rust bugs...

[the white rabbit]

Yeah ok they do rust, but not half as fast! Just thought if you wanted an experiment that was quicker than a year :-P

A better experiment then avoiding this issue would be to now empty the jars so the wool is damp and screw the lids on. That would be more representative of the condtion and SV finds itself in, damp and salty.

[Warthog]

Dunno about screwing the lids on, might use up finite oxygen. How about just throwing salty water over them all and leave them out in the open, with more salty water twice a day at rush hour (and one wash at lunch for a quick nip to Tesco's for some snacks :-P)?

[Pedro68]

You can also use the Pointy Sv in the same sort of experiment,
Simply ride it through one winter and watch it rust in the following Spring, Summer and Autum...
Yeah, I can attest to that ... my bike is really rusty looking ... oh no wait hang on ... 8-[ ... that's the fairings :oops: :mrgreen:

[New Leaf]

I can't decide if all these replies represent genuine interest, you lot humouring me, or just plain old taking the p1ss. Still i promised an update - so here you go...

http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/aa271/New_Leaf_SV/P1020197.jpg

http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/aa271/New_Leaf_SV/P1020196.jpg

These were taken almost 48 hours after initial exposure.

As you can see the sample with no protection at all is rusted to buggery. Interestingly the steel wool and nails stil look perfect if you lift them out of the pot, but there is a thick pile of iron oxide particles in the bottom of the beaker, and suspended in the water. I suspect that rusty water may be acidic and hence its corroding the the rust off the metal as soon as its formed.

The 2 protected samples have clearly faired much better. The one in the middle is treated with acf-50 and surprsingly seems to have faired a little worse than the wd-40.

Maybe this was due to me being a bight tight with the acf-50 can - as its sooo expensive :confused:. ( or maybe its just an expensive con and no beter than wd-40)

I'm expecting the wd-40 to catch up over a few days as it disolves in the water and evaperates.

We'll see.

[Pedro68]

Those photos are blocked at work ... classed as "Criminal Skills" :-o WTF?!?
ROFLMAO

[the white rabbit]

Very interesting. I'm not humouring you btw, its interesting. Plenty of air there too so just like a wet SV :lol:

[New Leaf]

Those photos are blocked at work ... classed as "Criminal Skills" :-o WTF?!?
ROFLMAO

:confused:

[Stu]

Yes, the antifouling properties are important but I am still surprised. Like Adburn says, I think there could well be enough air in there, the classic experiment ususally used boiled water. I would have thought at shallow depths steel will rust. Canons and stuff are rusty when hauled up usually are they not?
What, no second chances allowed then? :lol:

[poisonidea]

I don't want to pick holes in your experiment, but rust needs oxygen to develop, so you might have to keep dumping them in and pulling them out every 30 mins. Just think of ships and planes under the ocean, they are not rusty, just covered in barnacles ;)

There's a much greater concentration of oxygen in water than in air, in fact it's 1/3 oxygen, thats why things rust quicker when they're wet. The oxygen atoms in the H2O molecules bond with the iron in the steel creating iron oxide (rust) and small amounts of hydrogen gas, so theres no advantage of exposing the steel wool to air. Doesn't matter if the water's distilled or boiled it still contains the same amount of oxygen to react with the iron in the steel.

[Ceri JC]

I demand time lapse film footage of the rust forming! :D

[thor]

Yes, the antifouling properties are important but I am still surprised. Like Adburn says, I think there could well be enough air in there, the classic experiment ususally used boiled water. I would have thought at shallow depths steel will rust. Canons and stuff are rusty when hauled up usually are they not?

On big ships they also have sacrificial zinc anodes. Not something you can use on something that isn't submerged.

[Spiderman]

Intersting stuff, sort of thing i'd do at home myself so thanks for saving me the time and effort and please do keep updating this.

[Warthog]

There's a much greater concentration of oxygen in water than in air, in fact it's 1/3 oxygen, thats why things rust quicker when they're wet. The oxygen atoms in the H2O molecules bond with the iron in the steel creating iron oxide (rust) and small amounts of hydrogen gas, so theres no advantage of exposing the steel wool to air. Doesn't matter if the water's distilled or boiled it still contains the same amount of oxygen to react with the iron in the steel.

On warships, its the layer just above the waterline that rusts the quickest. Anything below the hull rusts a lot slower. Ask a sailor :)

[Stu]

On warships, its the layer just above the waterline that rusts the quickest. Anything below the hull rusts a lot slower. Ask a sailor :)
Maybe that's down to protection though. Like the ACF rusting faster than WD40 in the experiment because there was less of it.

[New Leaf]

i think its just that the rust under the water gets washed off by the sea.

[Warthog]

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/chem00/chem00767.htm

Not a very good link I'm afraid, but it kind of confirms what I say!

And here too about half way down. http://www.marinecorrosionforum.org/explain.htm

[New Leaf]

Here are some pics taken after day 6.

http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/aa271/New_Leaf_SV/P1020198.jpg
http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/aa271/New_Leaf_SV/P1020199.jpg

As you can see, the un-protected beaker is now well and truely rusted. The steel wool is now less than half its original size, with most of it lying on the bottom of the beaker as a brown powder.

The acf-50 is starting to loose the battle with the salty water, but the wd-40 has kept the nails and steel wool looking good as new.

I'm beginning to think that i need to adapt the experiment a little to make it more realistic. The wd-40 is alot thinner than the acf-50 and hence i think it got much better coverage on the steel wool. Also as the samples have been sitting in the same beaker of water all this time, i don't think it has been a fair test of how well the sprays would adhere to the bike exposed to rain and salty road spray. Maybe i'll hammer 3 nails into a plank of wood, and spray them with salt water once a day and leave them out in the elements.

Or maybe we should just accept that wd-40 is just as good, if not better than acf-50 and save ourselves 10 quid a tin??

[Warthog]

Well I for one am heading out right now to give my bike a good going over with lovely cheap WD40. Uneven test or not, you can't get a falsly high result can you? If it protects, it protects.

[northwind]

Or maybe we should just accept that wd-40 is just as good, if not better than acf-50 and save ourselves 10 quid a tin??

The reason ACF50 is better than WD40 is that it lasts massively better in the real world- as in, I sprayed my bike with it last week, I'll do it again in about february, and that's it- I'll commute 5000 miles or so through winter without washing it properly once (I'll give it a very quick hose for the brakes once a week or so, generally, you can't protect brake discs and I rusted a set of Braking wavies last year), and we already have salt down on the roads- will do until march. You can get just as good protection with WD40 or FS365 but you'll need to reapply dozens of times, and wash it every time. I can't be bothered :mrgreen: