Please help ID casement hardware

[Rwestad]

Thank you for the information on locating naval jelly. I will check when I run my next set of errands.

I worked a bit more on the hardware before bed last night and at least this set is cleaning up fairly well. I am working on a window that I found in the garage, which must have been removed when they tore out and replaced the kitchen window and east facing basement windows in the 50's.

At least they kept this one window stashed away. I plan to restore it first and use it as a placeholder while I work around the perimeter of the house. I haven't pulled back the plastic on any other windows yet, so have no idea what shape that hardware is in, but I'm a little nervous for it.

Here are a few photos of the cleaned up latch and hinge pin section and their respective screws. This is all wire brush work.

Thank you again for the advice.

[phil]

naval gelly works to dissolve rust. there is a product called rust mort ( and other trade names for it) that stuff turns the rust black and stops it oxidizing so you can paint over it. another product that does work but gives off terrible fumes is muriatic acid and you cna find that in HD for cleaning cement floors.
The issue I found with the muriatic is that first of all the fumes will seriously knock you to your knees. the other is that the rust starts up immediately after you take it out. I usually used a solution of water and baking soda to neutralize it then warm it up with a blowtorch and paint right away. I dont really recommend the muriatic nice to work with the fumes are terrible! I think they use it in fracking. it will remove any paint just by dunking and waiting. it will completely dissolve aluminum parts. i think its a little too much for most jobs.

sandblasting is the fastest, but its only little parts so unless you have a little home use sandblaster omit that. some have little ones for spark plugs and stuff. you can rent commercial stuff but not for window latches

another way, put water and washing soda in a plastic bucket. use a DC power supply and connect one lead to your part, the other to a piece of stainless steel. a spare car battery or charger will work ok. higher voltage will work faster. make sure not to short out the battery or the charger. I melted a battery that way, could have caught fire.
one of the parts will start bubbling , if the stainless one bubbles reverse the leads.
that process will remove rust but not metal , it leaves a black coating and you can rub that off or clean and and do more if you like. the black coating is a lot like if you went and bought a set of drill bits sort of a blackening coating, not paint.

most acids that remove rust also cause minor pitting in the metal, best to neutralize them after and the pitting helps the metal take the paint so it doesn't peel. most durable paint is two part epoxy but the spray bombs are ok. trem clad is really soft. its good for a gate not so good for hardware where scratching is an issue but ok on your old gate or something. Im a big fan of use what you have feeling the same about trips to buy more stuff..

you can get other products. I had some metal cleaner for cars, to clean the metal before paint. It was pink like the naval gelly but not quite so strong. as said the auto parts places have more than home depot. this is more like the pickling solution described. If they are industrial chemicals they can be hit and miss with consumers. , so if you wear your coveralls and not your bikini they will take you more seriously the body shops also may sell small quantities as a favor if you know one. I find sometimes they start saying they can't sell to consumer , sometimes they dont care. problem is no one wants to buy a drum of the stuff so take a little container thats suitable and just say you dont need a commercial sized quantity.
I have also heard that dairy farms use a product like the to clean the milking equipment but maybe someone here is a farmer that might know more on that.

here's an idea Ive been wanting to try. take old records that are shellac. ( not vinyl) If you have a scratchy chipped one you dont care about try breaking it into pieces and put it in lacquer thinner. Now you have cheap black lacquer. I haven't tried this but I want to just to see if it works. lacquer thinner is a lot cheaper than paint and the records, well they aren't too hard to find. I have a bunch with chipped up edges.

if you want to smooth out the pitted surface of what you yave try using glazing putty. It comes in a giant toothpaste tube and it is for filling minor imperfections like bubbles in bondo before paint. its not to go on super thick but you can fill and sand and make them look new if you like. unlike bondo, you dont need a catalyst so its easy to use. you wont need a lot of it.

you can get most of the loose rust off with a little wire wheel in an angl grinder or even just an electric drill. wear goggles even if you are fearless because getting hit in the eye wiht the loose bits of wire is no fun. I remember putting one on a drill reessand I t was probably spinning a bit fast so i looked lie a porcupine wiht the things all stuck in my coveralls. not the safest. also be careful especailly with angle grinders they can hook into stuff grab and throw things pretty hard. one of the faster ways is with a big sandpaper disk but that's only good on big flat surfaces. you can use fairly coarse paper and that will remove the rust fast.
I remembering seeing guys cleaning ships like that, hanging down the side on ropes with a giant angle grinder. going like that for days.. what a job!

[GinaC]

Oh right, I forgot to mention this! Neutralizing! After "pickling" precious metal (jewelry) in a crock pot filled with ascorbic acid solution, we dip the pieces in a bath of baking soda and water before rinsing them off. Then they get polished.

There is no pitting in precious metals this way. I've even done it with copper pieces and they didn't pit either. I certainly cannot guarantee that anything else won't pit, though. I'd still try just plain hot water in a crock pot first.

[phil]

boiling in soap and water is easy and a good way to remove old paint from hardware.
The pitting is a bit more complicated as it involves the type and strength of acids and the metal types. I've got some crystals that are used to make PCB boards they will eat copper away but I dont think they are suitable for rust removal. from what Ibve seen baking soda is a good way to neutralize and you can even use it as a pretty mild cleaner.
the chemistry and process for copper plating might not be too difficult and perhaps suitable for home use in restoring plated hardware.

an old autobody method before bondo was to use lead as a filler. perhaps it can be plated too, to fill the pits. that is, if working with lead isn't too much of a hazard. its much like solder , comes in different proportions of lead and tin.

a lot of the modern solder is non lead. I find it hard to use so I usually just use the older stuff. you can also use braising rod or silver solder to fill with but it requires getting the metal red hot. that makes a stronger joint so I use it for certain things requiring a bit more strength. you have to watch the heat because there is a point after the iron parts turn red before they melt. If you have a little oxy acetaline torch with a tiny tip you can do some pretty fine work with practice. I found I can build up the thickness of thin metal by welding with thin metal welding rod but it takes some practice to control the heat and the heat can cause some distortion.
people really good at this can expand metal with heat and shrink it by applying wet rags but these things take some practice to master. one thing that isn't too hard is to get metal red hot and bend it. by controlling where the heat is you can control where it bends. ive got a little torch that runs on just acetylene (no oxygen) they are called plumbers torches, not for welding but great for brazing as the flame isn't so hot as oxy-acetylene.
when playing around with iron you can affect the hardness, copper and brass act the opposite of iron, you can make copper and brass soft by heating and quenching but with iron it is sort of opposite but it also depends on the heat you go to and the type of steel. mild steel isn't as suitable for hardening but with tool steels you can anneal them to remove hardness then machine them then put the hardness back in through heating and quenching ( tempering). in general you can add metal by welding and remove it by grinding and create really almost any shape you like. blacksmiths are really good with these things, there is a lot to know, but a simple repair is sometimes just to add a bit of metal to a part where it has worn away or broken. I find an oxy acetaline torch is really handy for these limited repairs but Mig, Tig and stick welding are used a lot more in industry for manufacturing as they are so much faster and the heat is more localized. you can weld aluminum and stainless but they are a bit more difficult to work with usually. making jewellery would be a great way to master some of these skills and some things can apply to repair of little things. a latch for a lock that is worn out could be built back up and repaired or a hinge in can be refitted for example. these skills become important when working with things like antiques where buying parts is impossible. often for me it means I am able to get a machine working without waiting for parts to be shipped to me, or I can save time by just repairing stuff so it works while the new part goes through it's channels. with so much being made in China some of the parts get delayed because the parts are often not stocked in north America so that can easily cause a month long delay. in those situations repair of broken and worn parts can be important. In places like Cuba where parts are hard to get the mechanics have really excellent skills. A lot of farmers are also really good at making stuff work using what's around them.