before-n-after.co.uk Rustproofing - anybody used them?

I'm looking at under sealing mine in the new year. I have myself some hamerite stone chip with added waxoil. What's the best method for prep? Mines all pretty solid underneath, I was going to use a wire wheel and some rust converter. Then spray the stone chip on a few hours later. Does that sound about right?

 

In an ideal world, you would try to get all the rust out, as much as possible with the wire wheel, then depending on whether you are using the water/gel based rust converters or the Kurust style stuff that sets, you either need to rinse it off throroughly then let it dry out, or you can paint over the Kurust once it has cured.

But in the end any coating with any sort of major rust pockets behind it will pop off again as rust continues to form, and as @paradox says the more waterproof the skin made by the coating, the better it is at tracking water under everything so it all blows off in the end in a shower of crud and black anerobic corrosion.

And e.g. POR15 is also quite hard and brittle and pops off metal which flexes.
Stone chip seems better and I often use it for both permanent painting, and emergency treatment as it puts on a fair thickness of paint which is not too brittle.

As usual the rust that will cost you you cannot see and cannot protect against without a lot of work with cavity wax on a warm day or a heated workshop.

In general, this is the worst time of the year to treat rust as water based coatings dry out slowly (including Kurust which seems to be water based) , and wax based protection tends to set hard before it has a chance to soak into crevices.

 

Don't use rust converter. Here is my page about rust converters. If you are using a desktop or tablet, click on the PDF in the left hand panel. It's a ad I did in LRO which describes some tests I did on rust converters.

I think you mean Hammerite products Waxoyl Underseal. This is available in a tin for brushing on or in a schutz can. The schutz can version is much easier to use. Buy a Sealey schutz gun (not expensive) and borrow or hire a compressor. You will need to warm up the can first. Waxoyl underseal is 40% waxoyl and 60% bitumen. (It may be the other way round, it's 20 years since I got that nugget from picking the brains of the then technical guy at Waxoyl). I think the added bitumen leads to a trade off : impact resistant yes, unlike waxoyl but less rust killing capability. So I would clean up rusty areas as much as possible and spray them with ordinary waxoyl, allow a few days for it to set and then apply the waxoyl underseal over that. (Btw, I have my own solution to waxoyl's lack of impact resistance but far be it from me to come on here and shamelessly promote myself. )

NEVER, NEVER, NEVER use a pvc or polurethane schutz type coating over rust. It's a nightmare. It will hold the rust down well for a year or two but then the rust will start to fester underneath it just like it used to do with the old style bitumen underseal. You then have to wait a few years for the rust to fester enough that a pressure washer will remove the schutz.

Cheers Chris
Edited to add. Do you need permission to post links? My rust converter link does not work.

 

It would be interesting to know what treatments didn't work to confirm my prejudices - sorry, that should read "expert opinion". Has anyone had a schultz treatment over rust? Either done it themselves or had it done by a garage or bodyshop? Also, what are members experience with using rust converter?

 

I know this is an old post but it's raises a question for me.
I'm wire bushing the underside of mine with a drill. No rust there (South African import) just dirt and grime. The original paint is still there. The plan us to wire brush, then scotchbrite with white spirit, Vactan applied to any bare metal, then two coats of rustoleum. I was going to stone chip the wheel tubs between the two rustoleum coats - is this the right way to do it? Lastly was going to waxoyl all the cavities (do you coat the whole underside with waxoyl?)
This is the major job that's holding me up and I just want to get it done and put my newly built engine and box in and get the wiring done (I like that bit ).

 

It's Schutz not Shultz. Shultz was the cartoonist who did "Peanuts" (remember Snoopy? Charlie Brown?). Schutz mean protection in German. From the verb schutzen.

Why would you Schutz over rust? It's usually garages or bodyshops that do this. Because a) it's easy to use a can of Schutz with a Schutz gun b) it does not leave wax molecules in the atmosphere. (Just one molecule is all it takes to create a "fish eye" in a paint
job). c) It gives a good (temporary if it's over rust) cosmetic appearance.

 

Edit to delete now redundant post about how to use edit. (Thanks Baysearcher)

 

I would not use Vactan which is a rust converter I believe. For these reasons: 1. All rust converters contain a latex co-polymer. (Patent applications for rust converters are an excellent source of information on these). 2. I have done tests on rust and by far the best performing was Kurust. But even with Kurust, once the conversion process was finished, when I scratched it with a Stanley knife blade you could still see rust at the seat. 3. Any coating you put on top will only be as good as your rust converter which as we have seen is not good. I would say you can use stone chip in the wheel arches if, as you say, there is no rust there. If there is no rust that will be fine. I don't think a rust converter applied to clean steel is going to do anything apart from leave a layer of latex on it. I have no experience with Rustoleum which I see from a search is an anti-corrosive paint. I would say just use waxoyl (or Dinitrol if you are one of those who is persuaded that it's better than Waxoyl - I'm not). Waxoyl has the advantage that it can always be freshened up. Just pressure wash, dry, apply more waxoyl. The new waxoyl will soak into the old waxoyl, rejuvenate it and form a new amalgam with it.

 

Thank you for such a detailed response. My thinking was to use Vactan as a kind of spot primer, having remove rust spots back to metal, then put the Rustoleum on top of it - I've already bought the Rusto as I want the underside the same colour as the body, which is yellow so it'll be nice and light under there. I will be doing the Waxoyl last.
Might have to ring Rustoleum and ask if it's OK to use stone chip between the two Rusto coats.

 

Bear in mind that any advice I give you may not be 100% disinterested. Up to you to decide whether it's good advice and whether I am being totally honest or trying to manipulate you. First of all, why would you use stone chip between two coats of Rustoleum? I can't understand the logic behind that. Prior to reading your post I had never heard of either Vactan or Rustoleum. I have already given my opinion of rust converters. I suggest you try this: get a piece of rusty metal and apply some Vactan. It only takes about an hour at the most to do the "conversion" but give it 24 hours to be scrupulously fair. Then scrape through the Vactan with a Stanley knife blade. Can you still see rust where you have scraped?

Now if you could wait a couple of years you could do this experiment: On a piece of rusty metal, apply some Vactan (or any other "converter") to a small area. Then apply Waxoyl over the Vactan and also over an area of untouched rust. Leave for a year or two. (Indoors or in the garage - not outside because Waxoyl is not formulated to stand up to UV light which will degrade it). I guarantee that the rust will break through much quicker in the Vactan plus Waxoyl than the simple Waxoyl application. If you are still determined to use some kind of anti corrosive primer on areas of rust rather than simple Waxoyl (simple Waxoyl by far the best solution in my opinion) I would use either Comma stop rust or hammerite No. 1 both of which I have experience of. Both are designed to be painted on to rust and both give superb results in my experience.

By the way, you could also repeat the above experiment but this time using Vactan plus Hammerite No. 1 on an area of rust and just simple Hammerite No. 1 on an area of rust. Again, I guarantee that the Vactan/Hammerite no. 1 will fail first.

The overwhelming rationale for using simple Waxoyl is that it can always be "refreshed". If you bring me a vehicle that has had an amateur, poorly applied coat of waxoyl I'm not worried because where it has been poorly applied, over dirt for example, my pressure washer will simply remove it. If there are areas where it has been applied over clean metal and it's just a bit thin, because it was applied thin or because it has oxidised or been abraded, my coating will soak into it and form an amalgam with it. If, on the other hand you bring me a vehicle that has had some kind of plastic coating applied and rust is starting to break out I will turn you away and keep your deposit. This is stated on my website.

Cheers Chris
Edited to add: sorry Mark. I just realised that you may not be in the UK and products I mentioned may not be available where you are. You can get "Waxoyl Professional" in the US. (It's exactly the same as our UK Waxoyl). In Australia and New Zealand you can get lanolin or fish oil products which will do the same thing. By using oil, wax or grease type anti-corrosive coatings you are preserving the vehicle's originality and doing the minimum of molestation.

 

Thanks again for the above, Chris.
My thinking is that I want to paint the underside yellow to match the bus (white was my first thought but would look odd against the yellow). I find that having a light colour underneath makes it a lot easier to see what you're doing when fixing things. The bus has never been undersealed or waxoyled as it came from South Africa. I'm cleaning the 40+ years of crud and any surface rust (probably only appeared since being in the English atmosphere), first with a drill and wire brush then a scotch bright pad and white spirit. Given that I want a yellow finish and I want to stonechip the wheel arches, what would be the order of application? I also want to do two coats of Rustoleum as one doesn't quite cover - thinned or not.

 

If you are set on painting it I would go for Hammerite no. 1. to paint over any bare metal. You might have to get in online. Are you in the UK? Why not just paint the wheel arches? No-one will see the yellow underneath. Painting the underneath is a huge job just to be able to see things better. Of course it will be a labour of love so my rational arguments are not going to influence you much. Just bear in mind that as a professional rustproofer I consider that anything other than Waxoyl (or equivalent) is molestation, takes away from the vehicle's originality and devalues it. For the last point it would be interesting to ask a professional classic car auctioneer for an opinion. My bet is that he or she would back me up on this.

Edited to add: If you are intending to make it a "restoration" (though from what you tell me it does not need it), you should take detailed pictures of everything you do. These should then go in an album. But I guess that that is probably common knowledge on this forum and you don't need me to tell you how to suck eggs.

Cheers Chris

 

Hi Chris - yes I'm in Bourne, Lincolnshire. Would you be happy to PM me your telephone number for a chat?

 

Hammerite no 1 rust buster and hammerite underbody seal with added waxoyl have been my go to choice for the underside of many of my projects over the years.

They work as they should.
A lot of other products I’ve tried just don’t work aswell.

I have however stopped using waxoyl cavity wax and started using dynax s50 cavity wax as it creeps so much better.

 

Hi Mark,

I would love to have a phone chat. In fact that would be the thing I would most like to do in the world because I have hearing difficulties and can't use the phone. To understand what someone is saying I use a combination of subconscious lip reading and my hearing aids. I can't see lips moving on the phone. You are welcome to email me though. It's actually the second most thing in the world I would like to do. The first is to hear "Chain of Fools" by Aretha Franklin in proper hi fi at volume 11, not like I was hearing it through two tin cans and a piece of string.

Cheers Chris

 

Chris, I'm really sorry, didn't realise you have hearing problems. Makes my tinnitus seem petty. Would love to exchange emails on this as it's a lot easier and can insert pics more easily. If you don't mind me tapping your knowledge on this, that is.

 

Hi Mark, I have pm'd you my email address. For tinnitus, try researching "tinnitus + pubmed". All the studies to find treament are on that medical database. It contains every article ever published in English in any medical journal since the beginning of the twentieth century. Beware though that there are some "debunking" articles planted by big pharma. You need to read the articles carefully. A case in point is low level laser (red light) therapy (LLLT) for Meniere's, tinnitus and hearing loss. The studies use a daily 20 minute application to prove that it does not work. (With one study on Vertigo it DID work). But in fact with LLLT, less is more. I am having a little success in reversing my hearing loss using it. I have my own audiometer so I can test. It's early days but I have seen some very slight but definite improvements in some frequencies. Hopefully that will continue. I found I got best results doing 3 x 15 seconds pointing at the ear drum in each ear and 3 x 15 seconds rubbing just in front of each ear. I do this every three days. I got this book: Rejuventation: Using the Power of Light to Increase Vitality, Energy and Healing. (Nothing in the book about Tinnitus or hearing).The book recommends using a simple laser pointer. I use a fancier version called the Vitiyas which has infra red and a magnetic field as well.