Cleaning rust off inside of case

[jason192783]

Hey fellas,
excuse me if I'm posting this in the wrong section.

I always gut the cases that my gillettes come in, and the case and the metal inserts are always rusted
So I was wondering and asking for advice on how you clean them,
so far I've been thinking about first sanding them down a bit and after that just polish them up with metal polish
but I was wondering, is there maybe some kind of soak I could lay them in that would take some of the rust off, or anything of that kind?
So, how do you generally clean your gillette cases?

thanks in advance

 

[rxonmymind]

Jason let me be honest with you. That rust has reached the metal and you'll be left with lots of pits & flea bites. If you've done any automotive work you'll know what it would take to get that back to new. A LOT of sanding, dremel tools, etc. Unless it's a something that's been passed down to you I'd leave it.
Good luck either way you go.

 

[knightskid]

Hi Jason, I have tear off the velvet cloth and can get to see how rusted the case is, thrown off the velvet cloth as the condition is not good but retaining the Gillette wording. After that i soaked it today with hot boiling water with dish detergent but doesn't help much.
I don't think able to restore to its shining, so i shall proceed for:-
Step 1. sanding to smoothen out the rusted case
Step 2. apply some metal polish to see how well it can restore
Step 3. wrap it up with velvet cloth and paste back the Gillette wording

 

[Paddan1000]

Does the aluminum foil trick work with iron, like it works with copper and silver? You know, put the metal object overnight in a water, salt and vinegar solution together with aluminum foil. Then the oxide transfers to the aluminum foil, leaving the other metal in pristine condition. It wouldn't hurt to try, since iron is more noble than aluminum which prevents the reaction from working the other way around.

 

[jason192783]

thanks,
I did find it to be PITA. As long as I had the right tools with the right components, things went pretty good, it didn't look pretty, but rust was removed;
tho the components got worn quickly and I still had a lot left to do, I CBA anymore and left it the way it was.
I didn't feel right putting rusty components in my gillette cases, so I tossed 'em and build my own insert.

Jason let me be honest with you. That rust has reached the metal and you'll be left with lots of pits & flea bites. If you've done any automotive work you'll know what it would take to get that back to new. A LOT of sanding, dremel tools, etc. Unless it's a something that's been passed down to you I'd leave it.
Good luck either way you go.

to knightskid,
I also had a gold plated gillette case of which the inserts were all rusted,
the good thing about the gold case is that it doesn't rust, it only tarnishes, so I just put some metal polish to the gold case and it cleaned up great and was a relative easy task

 

[elmerwood]

I should have snapped some pics of a case I sent to Krona Kruiser recently. I put it in my blasting cabinet and gave it a quick once over. Its important on thin rusted metal like this, you use a less abrasive media and try no to focus on a area to long because the heat will quickly build soon distorting your piece. Maybe he will chime in on this with pictures of the case and what he has done to it since.