[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Originally Posted by Atlantia

Namaste Ibrahiim

I've conducted quite a thorough test with aluminium foil and I have to say that it is effective although only in limited circumstances.
It is good for disguising light staining and does remove very light oxidisation, but I've tried this on a sword where there were actual encrustations on the blade and even the small ones are not removed by the Aluminium foil.
The foil coats them with aluminium but doesn't remove them. You end up with silver coloured bumps.
I've found that this foil technique is best for very minor staining or disguising light pitting.
To illustrate here are some pictures.
The small one shows the 'proved' mark on an 1845 sabre prior to cleaning. The aluminium foil technique isn't really like any other to be honest.
If you used an abrasive cleaner-cream with aluminium in it, you'd polish the surface of the steel starting with the high points. If you use steel wool (no matter how fine) you do start to eventually burnish the surface or leave scratches, and so on.
But a combination of techniques can produce excellent results. The best thing about the using aluminium foil is that it doesn't seem to burnish the steel or leave any scratches or otherwise polish or abrade the steel in any way.
Even on an etched design like my 1845 the foil will remove very light surface rust while 'lessening' any sub-surface rust and leaves the high points of the design completely intact without producing any noticable wear at all.
It seems to be a gentle and effective method that on the face of it has no downside.
However, that said it needs to essentially be the final step in the process, but if you add it to the 'arsenal' of cleaning methods in the 'most delicate' position, then it's certainly going to be something to bear in mind.
I've found that folding the foil so it's 4-6 layers and rubbing quite hard produces good results.
After a while it does wear through and disintigrate. The foil is good to use because it takes whatever shape you want. It does turn your fingers black after a while though.
So, back to the illustrations. I found that the aluminium foil was having no effect on the visible encrustations, so I abandoned the foil and used an Xacto knife/scalpel with a 45 degree cutting edge, to carefully slice the surface rust off.
This is NOT a technique that I would recommend unless you practice it on worthless articles first as the surgical steel can leave horrible scratches on the blade if you are not VERY careful.
As I wanted to remove the rust without damaging the etched designs, it was perfect as it is 100% controlable and I could avoid abrading the high points of the raised design.
Once I had scraped/cut off the majority of the rust, I then used fine wire wool to achieve the result in the second picture.
Finally (and I hope these pictures show in the right order) I used aluminium foil to give the blade a final clean up. As you can see the aluminium impregnates the sub-surface rust and almost 'fills' the minor pits.
I would recommend the technique as a final step in a cleaning process. Or for use on steel items to delicate for other processes.
Interestingly if you rub the finished surface with WD40 it sucks some of the aluminium back out of the surface. The result is still good though.

Best
Gene

Salaams Gene~ Yes I agree with all that and underline my rust spot application. For bigger jobs I would be tempted onto 00 grade though I would first hit it with coke fruit juice or tomato paste. I have used aluminium foil and lemon salt successfully. The job on your Wilkinson looks very good and your technique of folding 4 or 6 aluminium foil into a thicker wadd is same as me as otherwise it falls apart fast as do your fingers! This is what I would call the softest technique and is almost non invasive ~ though the step up onto more aggressive techniques is tempting but dangerous and leads to use of highly corrosive acids like car battery and on to Ferric chloride which I would leave to specialists in the black art of polishing wootz. See Notes at Kattara for Comments #167.
In this case what needs to be done is to see the damage first and then select the right gear to fix it... and a simple workshops programme to follow...ending off with wd 40 to clean it up and gun oil and or preservation wax to complete the job. Regards Ibrahiim.