Ed's Red and nickel finish

[IHMSA Shooter]

I have been toying with the idea of making some Ed's Red. Is it safe on a nickel finish?

I found out the hard way that certain cleaning products will damage nickel plating.

Just curious about Ed's Red.

[Unclenick]

It has no metal solvents, so it won't be able to do anything to the nickel metal itself. If your plating isn't perfectly intact, Ed's Red or any penetrating oil may be able creep between it and the metal and accelerate loosening and flaking. In that instance, though, the plating was going to fail eventually anyway.

[James K]

Don't use ammonia in the compound.

In conventional nickel plating, nickel will not adhere to steel. So the plater first plates the steel with copper, then with nickel which will adhere to the copper.

But any cleaning product that has ammonia in it, if it can get to the copper, will attack the copper undercladding and leave the nickel plating without support. This usually happens where the nickel plating has been nicked or scratched, but areas like the muzzle and front of the cylinder are also vulnerable.

It is not true that in such cases "the plating was going to fail eventually anyway"; it was not going to fail as long as the copper was there to hold it in place.

Jim

[Unclenick]

Ed's Red has no ammonia products. It consists of automatic transmission fluid, kerosene, mineral spirits and acetone, with lanolin optional. It is a powder and carbon solvent, not a metal fouling remover.

I stand by my statement that any nickel that is caused to flake off by a mere penetrating oil will have flaked off anyway eventually. That is because the penetrating oil can only enter where a crack line already exists.

It is not true that nickel cannot be plated directly on steel. I did it in chemistry class in college. You just don't use a low pH (strongly acid) plating solution and it is fine. Where copper usually gets involved in nickel plating other than on zinc or other extremely acid sensitive metal is as a pit filler. You build up a thick layer of copper plating then level the surface and polish it before nickel plating the whole work. That is a common restoration technique used by platers on car bumpers and the like. Nickel is too hard and does not easily thicken enough to serve as a filler.

You can, by the way try your own electrolytic nickel plating. The kit at this link will work directly on steel, copper, bronze, brass, zincated aluminum, activated nickel, and activated Stainless.

[candr44]

Leave out the acetone and ammonia.

Ammonia is for removing copper fouling and isn't something you can stand to breath every time you use Ed's Red. Put it on a patch only and hold your breath if you need ammonia to remove copper fouling.

Acetone is for plastic fouling on shotguns and removing lacquer in the chamber left behind by a lacquer coated cartridge. It can also damage plastic parts and wood finishes. It also evaporates out rather quickly and stinks so there is no point in adding it until you need it. Do you really want to breath the vapors from ammonia and acetone every time you use Ed's Red?

The transmission fluid, kerosene, and mineral spirits do a good job of cleaning and seems to be good for plastic and rubber as well. It also won't damage nickel. Neither will acetone but I'm not so sure about ammonia over time.

[Unclenick]

And what ammonia would there be to omit? As I stated in my last two posts, there are NO METAL ATTACKING SOLVENTS and, in particular, there is NO AMMONIA in the Ed's Red formula. I'm not sure why people persist in thinking there is?

To clear up any misunderstanding, I am attaching a PDF file of the last and most up to date version of the formula published by its originator, C.E. "Ed" Harris, describing it in detail and explaining why the particular combination of solvents is used. I haven't read the article for several years, but I seem to recall Mr. Harris mentioning the acetone may be omitted. Unlike the other solvents, acetone will dissolve unburned powder, but other than that, I expect it mainly accelerates the cleaning process overall. I recall from college organic chemistry and quantitative analysis classes that we used small amounts of acetone to dry the last drops of water out of glassware after cleaning it. I suppose that if you'd got your bore wet or had occasion to flush it with hot water after shooting black powder or corrosive primers, it would help remove traces of that water, too.

Edit: Well, something is wrong with the upload manager. It claims to have uploaded the attachment, but it is not displaying. Bother. I've uploaded it to a file sharing site. The link is below.


http://www.savefile.com/files/1925196