Evaporust and similar products have been mentioned in the body of other threads but never a sole topic so I thought I'd share my experience with it. I had a cats-astrophy a while back and several pet projects became badly rusted. Collectively it was probably 500 hours of careful surface finishing. Last week I bought a couple of gallons of Evaporust and enough 2" PVC pipe and parts to make a cylinder to immerse barreled actions.

The results were stunning and well worth the $45-50 for the product. I still have a lot of polishing but not a fraction of what I would have started with.

As a side note, the patina left after soaking was virtually identical to the artificial antiquing one sees on some reproduction firearms like Cimarron Arms 1873 45 Colt revolvers.

If someone wants to duplicate that look, this is a good way. You need a heavy coat of surface rust first. Much more than a typical rust blue stage but far less than when actual pitting happens. I suppose that may depend on the degree you want to achieve. In my case once I soaked the parts, they obviously had significant patina but felt very smooth to the touch.

Just passing this along to whoever might be interested...

I completely agree. Great stuff. I bought a box of files at an auction that I thought I would have to throw most of away. After an overnight soaking in the Evaporust, I took a brass wire brush to them and rinsed them. They are all useable again. The patina was also a nice look.

soaking in molasses and water works very well 1part molasses 9 parts water not as fast but doesn't pit if you look at every day or two used it on rusty chisels and hand tools, not used on guns.

I bought some at Home Depot and was amazed at how well it worked on a box of hex wrenches that had rusted because I had forgotten about them over thirty years.

I soaked them for a while, and they came out of the bath with a black oxide coating that would come off, to an extent, after wiping, or brushing, but which remained afterwards and made the wrenches look as good as new, but with a black, antiqued finish, as TT has said.

I wondered then how this stuff would work on firearms or parts. Good to know it works very well.