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How to clean wireforms and chrome - spacies tutorial.


spacies

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Lets 'fess up, freakin' wireforms gives us the $hits and cleaning them is something all of us hobbyists and restorers never look forward too. Lots of wire, lots of little rust spots, lots of dirty joints that are almost impossible to get into and clean properly, lots of leftover rag stuck in the joints and even once you have installed these damned things back in your machine, you are still cleaning off Autosol or Silvo for days afterwards.

 

That's about to change.

 

Here are the things you are going to need:

 

1 x large plastic bin. I use the large 'under bed' one available from Bunnings. I think it was $23.99. It fits 4 Bally/Williams legs. It won't fit Stern.

1 x bag of Oxalic Acid. This was also from Bunnings and was $17 (see below for pic). This is what you use as a Timber Bleach. Google it.

Rubber gloves. Heavy duty ones like dishwashing gloves.

1 x 3m 000 Grade Pad. This is a Non Scratch pad (see below for pic)

An old toothbrush. You'll need this because some real stubborn rust will go yellow and that stuff it usually in the joins.

Fish Oil Spray (or any other rust inhibitor).

 

http://i936.photobucket.com/albums/ad208/spacies/2014-03-18173909_zpsd212a1b4.jpg

 

Lots of rags.

Water.

 

Just a few safety points first. Wear long sleeves and pants to protect from the acid. Wear glasses to protect your eyes. Although this stuff isn't too dangerous because it is diluted a lot, I don't want you guys taking risks :)

 

Okay, now for the fun stuff!

 

Put on your rubber gloves and then put 1 heaped tablespoon of the Oxalic Acid in to the bin and fill with water. Give it a quick stir with a stick.

 

Gently put in the chrome parts you want to clean. Careful not to splash! Now put the lid on the tub and wait.

 

http://i936.photobucket.com/albums/ad208/spacies/2014-03-09125804_zps0346d7d0.jpg

 

That's it! No need to sit there for hours swearing and cursing scrubbing those wireforms. The minimum is about 6 hours but it is better to leave stuff overnight.

 

With the real stubborn rust, you'll need to hose them down and then repeat the soaking and maybe add another spoon of Acid. You'll see the real stubborn stuff because it will go yellow.

 

Righto, I purchased the world's dirtiest Demo Man:

 

http://i936.photobucket.com/albums/ad208/spacies/2014-02-20122014_zps7d12d23b.jpg

 

This sucker was just filthy. All that black stuff is the perished rubbers from the playfield which has been picked up by the balls and deposited everywhere! There were rubber bands on the outlanes that had perished and melted on to the playfield. Eek.

 

So the wireforms looked like this:

 

http://i936.photobucket.com/albums/ad208/spacies/2014-03-09125830_zps6d1ae638.jpg

 

http://i936.photobucket.com/albums/ad208/spacies/2014-03-09125907_zps82558ccd.jpg

 

http://i936.photobucket.com/albums/ad208/spacies/2014-03-10190213_zpsc70fda52.jpg

 

http://i936.photobucket.com/albums/ad208/spacies/2014-03-11170226_zps3c3a67c0.jpg

 

All of them were like this, dirty and with thousands of little rust spots. I have been down the rub 'n scrub route with these things and it ain't fun, but you already know that. My first encounter was TFTC which also has a lot of wire! I spent a whole day rubbing those damn things until I was over it. Arggh.

 

I let these soak overnight and removed them from the brew. I hosed them clean, wiped them down with an old towel and then used a clean rag to get rid of the oxidation. I grabbed the toothbrush to remove any stuff stuck in the joints. Once this was done I wiped them over with the 000 pad. This took all of 15-20 minutes to do ALL of these wireforms. I know I have spent 20 minutes doing one small wireform before!

 

Here are the results:

 

http://i936.photobucket.com/albums/ad208/spacies/2014-03-11170544_zpsd7929303.jpg

 

http://i936.photobucket.com/albums/ad208/spacies/2014-03-11170512_zps31b2f780.jpg

 

http://i936.photobucket.com/albums/ad208/spacies/2014-03-11170606_zpsfa0e6e7c.jpg

 

http://i936.photobucket.com/albums/ad208/spacies/IMAG0426_zps51e85003.jpg

 

 

 

http://i936.photobucket.com/albums/ad208/spacies/2014-03-11170853_zps05425155.jpg

 

There you have it guys. This is the easiest way to clean these things or any other chrome part be it pinball, automotive or whatever, but especially wireforms!

 

Oh the Fish Oil! Give them a light spray and a wipe down. This will stop those pesky little rust spots ever coming back. It's an optional step so I'll leave it up to you. One place you will need to use the Fish Oil is on the inside of the legs. They just about always have rust on the back and especially down the bottom where the leg leveler goes through.

 

When you're done with the brew, pour it on the grass, not down the drain! You grass will go nuts!

 

Happy Aciding!

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That is a fantastic result! Thank you so much for sharing your info... I will be trying this on the weekend for sure!

 

Cool. Take some pics for us :)

 

One thing I really love about this is how the point where the wires touch each other (the welded point), which is usually tarnished and dirty, comes up so nice and shiny. It's all about the detail ;)

 

And hey guys, keep the brew out of harms way too if you have little people around. Lock it in the shed or lock the handles on the plastic bin together somehow :)

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I certainly will! I was forever polishing wire form by hand for hours on end, and to get into those weld points were impossible to clean no mater what you did!... Until now :)

 

Cool. Take some pics for us :)

 

One thing I really love about this is how the point where the wires touch each other (the welded point), which is usually tarnished and dirty, comes up so nice and shiny. It's all about the detail ;)

 

And hey guys, keep the brew out of harms way too. Lock it in the shed or lock the handles on the plastic bin together somehow :)

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That's impressive - Even when I don't have any wireform to clean.

 

How long can something stay in, Will it eat the chrome away after a week or so?

 

<Added>

That looks clean enough to be re-chromed - If you preferred that to using fish oil.

(Fish oil might collect dust or the sticky nature might cause slight drag on the ball)

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I certainly will! I was forever polishing wire form by hand for hours on end, and to get into those weld points were impossible to clean no mater what you did!... Until now :)

 

Yeah those little points suck to try and scrub. Especially the ones like in the close up pics above of the rust spots, where two points meet. Eek.

 

That's impressive - Even when I don't have any wireform to clean.

 

How long can something stay in, Will it eat the chrome away after a week or so?

 

I'm not sure mate. It's not eating the chrome, it's eating the rust. Right now I have had a set of legs in the brew for 3 days. These were particularly rusty and I take them out each day after work and scrub the rust off them. They've gone from very rusty to about 90% mint. The front are shiny shiny but the point where the leg leveler goes through at the bottom has a bit of rust still there. Tomorrow will be the last day I leave them in there so I'll upload the results tomorrow night. I'm pretty chuffed with the results so far :)

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You can also buy Oxalic acid from Farm Depot stores in 50 kg bags for around $100 (maybe cheaper) this is also the only ingredient in deck clean mixed with water, work it out 100 grams (?) per litre of water instant deck clean versus a $20.00 litre container ;)
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Great job, i had a judge dredd and all the ramps were pretty bad, went on holidays over christmas and took the playfeild with me to the caravan park, missus was sorta ok with it - would of taken the whole machine but wouldnt fit through the caravan door. I used aluminium foil and water which worked well but still have to do some rubbing, it was ok watching the cricket drinking beer and shopping out a playfeild.
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You can also buy Oxalic acid from Farm Depot stores in 50 kg bags for around $100 (maybe cheaper) this is also the only ingredient in deck clean mixed with water, work it out 100 grams (?) per litre of water instant deck clean versus a $20.00 litre container ;)

 

Yeah you can buy it in bulk but you aren't ever going to use that much! I put 1 heaped tablespoon to 40 litres of water so that bag should last me the rest of my pinball resto life ;)

 

Impressive.

 

The fish oil doubles handily if you put it on a car muffler, everyone looks in the boot for the dead fish.

 

Ha ha, definitely make sure you buy the deodourized Fish Oil spray 'cos nobody wants fishy smelling pinballs inside!

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Very nice handy tip and pretty much inexpensive , thank you for sharing .

 

I bought some of this gear but I have to find the time to give it a go ,downside it's very expensive .

 

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