I have done the same and gotten the same results.
I’ve also cleaned up coin doors, lock bar receivers, and other random parts with good results overall.

Dave

You may want to spring for new leg levelers. Just saying... And how many uses can you get before you change out the Evaporust stuff?

And old legs are wider then new Steve legs. Can't use new Steve legs on an old cab without a repaint because you'll see the cab gouge lines, must use old cleaned up legs.

I have the same kind of setup but I'm struggling to find a way to filter/clean the evaporust- what's your method of reusing it?

Just did this a few weeks ago for my Night Rider EM. I use vinegar, but same idea.

Of course, it goes without saying that it works amazingly well as a paint remover also, , ,

I agree, for "most" machines that won't be a 10/10, just clean 'em up and run with it.

To each their own though. Nice work!

As an aside, I attach fishing line through the bolt holes to make them easy to put in and take out.

Nice setup! I'm lazy and went super easy and bought a plastic wallpaper tray. Think it was $4.00
Just like a bathtub!! Was only able to do 2 legs at a time.

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If your gonna repaint them you can wire brush them and save some life on evapo rust.

There are some inexpensive car chrome polish that work too, blue magic gave a really nice look to some old legs but it was more work then waxing.

I've never tried EvapoRust, but for lightly rusted parts, CLR works pretty well. I've brought back many sets of legs with only hot water, soap pads, and elbow grease. I'll lightly wire wheel any really bad spots, and around the base. A slightly dull razor blade is also useful to remove any heavier rust. Try it! This step will significantly speed up any further rust removal process.
To get them really dry, after cleaning them, I heat them lightly with a propane torch, until surface moisture haze no longer appears. This is important, because you don't want to trap moisture in the pores (yes, metal has pores!) by coating with wax or polish.
I finish them off with Mothers Mag and Aluminum Polish. Can do a set of four in about an hour, and it's a good upper body workout as well.
It's often amazing how well a set of legs or a coin door can come out, considering what they looked like before.

Someone on the forum said to use these sand/finish wheels. They work great and shine up the metal fast and easy but don’t fit the inside corner. Maybe I’ll try the evapo rust method. Thanks for posting your process and pvc tube

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Coffee filters.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/cult-of-evaporust

Great stuff

I tried doing the coffee filters and it took like 30 minutes.

I use a large funnel and lay paper towels in the bottom of it.

I think these are beyond saving. Going out in the trash.

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Evapo-Rust could certainly save those legs. Even if after the Evapo-Rust there is pitting, you could have these legs powder coated. Don't throw them away!

Yeah I would save those. The legs I restored for my Quicksilver build were about on par with that. Evaporust and rustoleum hammered silver spray paint. They look great.

I'll take them!

In my opinion, that sanding flapper wheel is not recommended for plated parts like legs. It ends up leaving sanding marks in the finish which is unattractive to me.

On the other hand, that wheel is exceptional for cleaning up stainless steel parts like lockdown bars and side rails. I have a few around for just that purpose and the lockdown bar and top edge of the side rails of every EM game that comes through gets treated with it. It effectively regrains stainless steel.

I just knock off the loose rust and hit it with Hammered Silver paint and they look great. Half a $6 can of paint yields tough finish on front and back of four legs that sticks directly over the surface rust.

Ok, ok! I'll keep them around. Coarse wire wheel treatment, and Hammertone paint will at least make them useable. Let's see how close a sow's ear can approach being a silk purse. One already has the leveler stud broken off in it, and I'm not counting on the others to come out easily. They really are heavily rusted.

Evaporust is the greatest stuff ever. I've saved tons of legs using it, with the same setup as the OP did. I have a four inch piece of PVC I use for stuff like lockdown bars and receivers etc.

They will come out once you drop them in the Evaporust. I just had four legs with seized levelers from the Merry Go Round I'm restoring. They all came out.

I agree with Mike on the legs. If there is bad pitting I'll paint them or powdercoat them. Don't use the flapper on legs but I love it for lockdown bars and especially rails.

I've used Evaporust for quite some time for auto restoration projects over the years, and one thing I've experienced that seriously seemed to reduce the effectiveness of it is using it on cast iron (calipers, master cylinders, wheel cylinders... etc). With anything steel you can reuse it many times over, and it still works great.

Anyone else see this?

-Paul

Oh yeah... what I wanted to say before I went off on the cast iron tangent is if you don't have PVC pipe or a container long enough for the legs you can simply lay out some 2x4's to make walls around the part you want to submerge, and line the walls with a cut up contractor bag. You can make it as long or as short as you want, and when you're done with it just pick up the 4 corners of the bag containing the used Evaporust and carefully pour it out into a large funnel lined with a coffee filter for reuse.

The bag is stiff enough to not ooze out between the boards yet strong enough to not be easily punctured by the parts you're cleaning.

-Paul

I like the tube idea as a container. I'd been using a wall paper tray but this is better. Thanks for sharing

Drop them off at my place the next time you're around. I'll soak them in my tube a few days and those level stems will pop right out.

Ah, sure understood. This was my first time and I think I did see the legs were plated. It’s been a learning experience. I’ll do the evapo to the legs and wheel to the other parts. Need to do the side rails on. Joker poker

Every time I use Evaporust I get frustrated that the parts look *amazing* at first glance once first removed, but then quickly seem to take on a sort of residue film if I leave them lying for even for just a minute or two. Of course it stands to reason the parts should be rinsed off anyway, but as soon as I do so they look dull... as if they need to be repainted or sanded or plated or whatever. For parts that were originally "plain bare metal" this is aggravating especially if most of it had been OK except for the rusty portion, and is now uniformly dull.

I've yet to do an Evaporust treatment that left the part ready-to-use. Which is understandable to a point, but how are you folks getting away with using it without having to rework every last part after all?

I've found this with CLR as well, but not with all metals. I know that if you leave parts in CLR too long, they will start getting a black coating on them. I rinse the parts with very hot water and scrub them with a brush, as soon as I remove them, but usually I need to polish the part with Mothers Mag and Aluminum Polish to get it looking good and bright.

Rinse off the part with hot/warm water as soon you take it out of the Evapo-Rust. Then dry it right away with a hair dryer. Now apply some chrome polish to the part.

Yup. Get the part good and dry before polishing. Hair dryer, heat gun, or a propane torch.

Not meaning to turn this thread into "the saga of JR's decrepit legs", but I decided to get started on making these decent and useable again.
I managed to get the broken off leveler stud out, and that was the first one I figured I'd work on.
Got as much rust off as I could using razor scraper, and wire wheel.
Then scrubbed with cleaning vinegar and steel wool. Rinsed, dried (with my trusty torch), and sprayed with Rustoleum Hammered Finish (dark bronze).

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Started on the second one. No luck getting the rusted leveler out, and naturally it broke off very short.
Whipped out the center punch and drill.
Was able to clear the hole and re-cut
the threads with perfect results.
Don't hold your collective breaths waiting for the whole set to be finished. This may take a while as I have bigger fish to fry. I may give EvapoRust a try if I come across it.
Manual methods of removing this level of rust are pretty taxing!

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Have been using the same pipe setup for a while now, got the idea from another thread here long ago. Works great , rarely change the evaporust. When really want them to sparkle, use metal polish after, then clear coat with rattle can clear. Almost always replace levelers. And most of the time, use polishing wheel on the leg bolt heads after also soaking them in evaporust.

Also think we should maybe take up a collection to get JR a couple gallons. He has been working wayyyyy too hard removing rust. LOL

I have used the Coca Cola and aluminum foil trick for chrome legs with pitting and light surface rust. Works great. I actually now use Coke and a copper pot scrubber I found at my grocery store. Same thing, heat and dry...then wax. I sold the last set on a game I sold, so no pics on hand. I think I posted pics on another thread here somewhere.

I appreciate that. I've just never come across it anywhere.
CLR works pretty good too, and I see it everywhere.

Coke contains phosphoric acid, which is what helps remove rust.
I've never looked into getting pure phosphoric acid for rust removal, but I imagine it must be available.

I used oxalic acid with great result. You can neutralize it with baking soda and dump it safely after you are done.
Oxalic acid is lemon salt. You get it through your pharmacist.
I learned about the technique here https://www.maaca.org/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=7080

I used the wall paper tray with a sheet of plastic over it to reduce evaporation.
Make sure the leg is fully immersed, otherwise you will get a demarcation line.
I tried to do 4 legs at once and I regretted it.
You are better soaking 2 legs at a time.

Same.

I built a PVC tube but stupidly went with a 3" diameter and can only fit 2 legs at once. Worse - I've had some lock down receivers that won't fit at all. Wallpaper tray worked great. Between the tube, the tray and a plastic bin for odds and ends - everything gets it's turn in the evaporust bath.

Well, I got the other two levelers out.
One had to be drilled and retapped, and I managed to get one out by cutting off the foot close to the base of the leg, and unscrewing it toward the inside of the leg using Vise Grips.
Got two more of the legs derusted and sprayed with Rustoleum Hammered Finish, but was stopped short derusting the last leg on the wire wheel, when my right middle digit took a dive into the rotating wire wheel. Ouch! Just a nasty abrasion, but I figured I'd call it quits for today. I'm probably going to need another can of Rustoleum to finish the last leg anyway.

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Next time try Spraying a little Kroil on the threads.

I tried everything with similarly rusted out legs and levelers. jrpinball did exactly what I ended up having to do without wasting tons of time and money on Kroil, WD40, etc.

Heat from a propane torch on the leg around a rusted leveler after it has some PB Blaster applied for a while usually loosens them up enough you can back them out. The heat will expand the leg out from around the leveler thread.

I tried PB and a torch on rusted levelers, got nowhere.

Soaked them in vinegar a few days and they spun right out.

Added bonus, no digit abrasion.

Yes, it took several days (of non-work), but the actual time spent was about 2 minutes.

JR, you're working too hard!

What kind of vinegar do you use?
I bought a jug of cleaning vinegar at the grocery store, but it doesn't seem to be significantly stronger than salad vinegar.

Tried heating too. It helped on the first one, but not on the other two that I had to eventually drill. When the rust has eaten away at the thread profile, it isn't going to come out.
One thing I learned on the last one though (which I thought would be the worst one); if the leveler is screwed in where you have an inch or so protruding inside the base, cut off the rest of the foot as close to the bottom of the base as possible, file it smooth, and then use vise grips and unscrew it from the the inside. That way you won't be dealing with any length of buggered up or rusty threads, and the piece should come out fairly easily in a few turns. Once it's started, squirt some oil or whatever on the thread, and work it back and forth a few times and then it'll come out easily.

JR - just white distilled.

I'm used to drilling out rusty bolts at work, so drilling and tapping a 3/8 bolt is no big deal for me. I don't think I saw anyone using Naval Jelly for the rust? I've done 2 sets of legs with it and for something I expected to be painting came out close enough that with a coat of wax, they look pretty good. I brush it on with a parts cleaning brush, let it sit for a while and rinse it off. One set I did 2x to remove some heavy rust on the inside of the legs.