# Best ways to deal with rust spots on a white frame?



## partsguy (Aug 15, 2020)

Hello! I finished a ton of projects that were in my way and got some more cash scrapped up to finished the ‘Vette. The frame is looking good, but I still have a couple of things to address before I start to reassemble this white wabbit.

How can I deal with these rust spots in the rear? To leave it alone is allow it to get worse over time. I know I shouldn’t paint over the spots because that would look worse (large touched up spots on 60 year old WHITE paint). The bike is turning out very good so far. What would you do to stop the rust from getting worse, and not take away the beautiful age the rest of the bike has?


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## piercer_99 (Aug 15, 2020)

I used different Mequiar's compounds on the 41 Elgin, worked on the white, light and dark green.   Worked great on the white rims also.

I also use them on most all of my bikes.

Cleaner Wax
Scratch X 2.0
Ultimate Compound


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## partsguy (Aug 15, 2020)

piercer_99 said:


> I used different Mequiar's compounds on the 41 Elgin, worked on the white, light and dark green.   Worked great on the white rims also.
> 
> I also use them on most all of my bikes.
> 
> ...




Thank you! Do you use all three in a particular order? Or just try one of each and see what works best?


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## the tinker (Aug 15, 2020)

Maybe a little flat white paint, here and there. . .


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## GTs58 (Aug 15, 2020)

White shoe polish maybe? Never tried it for that purpose, but I sure would try it if I was messing with that White frame.


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## Jeff54 (Aug 15, 2020)

Dollar store toilet bowl cleaner will clean the rust that's in cracks and above paint. Be sure to use distilled water to flush the cleaner thoroughly. You're not going to get the rust out of deep chips. And stay away from the decals. Word has it, model car collectors claim that UV light can help decals to freshen up, IDK but worth investigating. 

If can get the rust in chips managed, conditioned you could use a bright white paint and hand rub it in while somewhat filling cracks and pits and buffing it off the original paint at same time. .  IDK but maybe : Rust-Oleum® Universal Bright White Automotive Touch-Up


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## piercer_99 (Aug 15, 2020)

partsguy said:


> Thank you! Do you use all three in a particular order? Or just try one of each and see what works best?



on rust spots, on the white rims, I used the scratch X and cleaner wax, after washing them.   It took off the majority of the rust stains.

the ultimate compound is great anywhere, heck, all 3 of them have great results.


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## partsguy (Aug 18, 2020)

I am going to try all of the above next time I can get to my workshop.


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## Lamont (Aug 22, 2020)

Looking specifically at the rust sposts  1- just NE of the the K/S tube fender stay tab , and 2 - toward the top of the indent near the rear drop out ,

spots like this I treat / clean up using the following method:

 1.  small amoungt PB blaster oil in a shot glass. use a small art brush  ( bristle is best) to dab , soak the rust spots and any chips that have rust .  let soak over night 
2. using the fine point of a restaurant snail fork , and/ or dental pick tool set from Harb Frht  , scrape away the rust particles. Use qtip to wipe away rust and another qtip to reapply clean oil as you go .  
 You can also tear and fold wet sanding grit sandpaper and use wet sand precise areas, ( with oil)  while staying away from sound adajent OG paint.   
after cleaning away as must rust as you can get , i treat very small chips where there is bare metal surounded by paint by scraping ising the dental pick like a pencil to get to bare metal .


3. Then clean trated areas with alcholol or spirits using a q tip .   

4. using a super fine artist brush , and a FLAT ( even on other than wite bikes)  testors model paint , place the smallest droplet u can finesse with the brush at the center of a cleaned out chip areas, ideally the drop of paint will level and fill the chip , without overflowing onto OG sound paint.  

5. allow 24 hours min dry time. wet sand any very raised droplets or brush mark areas of  touch up.  the do this you can cut 5 mm slivers of the sandpaper and roll like a paper cocktail straw for a precise tool . 

6.  Finally  macguires fine grit polish compound as above ( or scrath-ex or heallight restore compound) 


Obviously , you are not going to be able to treat the whole bike in this case , using the above method, and would want to.  I do this method on bikes with a lot few chips , and when a bike has a lot of missing paint like this one , pick your spots for this mehod strategically , then just wax and buff the large areas that have missing a paint.   

the above works really well on deep paint with deep chips that you can fill.  , when the feild of paint surrounding is thin , stay witghing the boundaries of the OG paint by trying to leave a margin between your droplet and the OG ..... to the eye it will be filled , and its better than overlapping ..... 

Again , selected areas can be way improved this way even if you are only treating 10 percent of the blemishes.   

Avoid the temptation to start touching up everywhere.  
pick your spots. 

 if in doubt , just do the rust cleanout and fill chips with wax when you polish with wax, skip the paint phase above.

Hope this makes sense with pics.

goodluck with the rest of the build


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## partsguy (Aug 23, 2020)

Thank you all! Here’s some progress. The Meguiars is putting on a spanking to the rust. There’s enough scratches and chips though, I’m not sure if I should touch them up, may be best to just seal it. I’m not Even finished with the compound yet.


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## GTs58 (Aug 23, 2020)

Damn, that's just too much to touch up. Really, get some Kiwi in the bottle and after cleaning out all the chips see it it will stay after a couple applications. I'm sure you've seen where someone has written all over their car windows with shoe polish.


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## guzziworksman (Aug 23, 2020)

Something I've used with great success, is Evapo-Rust. Soak your whatever in it...won't hurt the paint at all (in fact it tends to "brighten" the paint). Non-toxic, bio-friendly, reusable, and makes rust disappear. Hardest part, is having to build some kind of tub to soak a frame in. (Not that hard, really.)  I would think, decals wouldn't like it.


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## Rivnut (Aug 25, 2020)

I cleaned some surface rust/dirt off of a '40 Elgin fender and skirt guard with a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. Not perfect but much better. No pictures but a significant improvement. A few years ago I removed some surface rust from some patio chairs with some Whink.  I bought it to remove some rust from the carpet in my old Blazer.  Worked well for both.




L


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## vincev (Sep 1, 2020)

I think I would just leave well enough alone. Too much to touch up.Once you start touching up the next step you will want to do is spray paint it.My white Vette is about the same condition. Just my opinion


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## SirMike1983 (Sep 2, 2020)

Re touch up: 

White is one of the most difficult colors to fully match and touch-up. A normal human eye is quite good at discerning subtle variations in the white: flat/gloss, faded/bright, minty tints, cream/off-white tones, etc. It's certainly possible to get a good match, but you're going to be working hard to manually mix your paints until you get a true match. If you're lucky, an auto paint shop or paint store can match using a computer, but even those can only get so close. And any paint you mix may match one part of the bike, but not another because of irregular fading over the years.

This is not to discourage you, but it is to say that you need to be ready to make good touch-up on an old, white bike a project of sorts. With a large area of old, white paint like that, it's going to be hard (or very lucky) to pull a bottle of flat or semi-gloss (or whatever) white off the shelf and have a spot-on match.


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