Originally Posted by
bikemig
You soak the frame in evaporust using wallpaper trays or do you use oxalic acid?
It's tough to find a storage bin large enough to hold an entire bike frame which would be ideal. If you end up moving the frame around, a wallpaper tray sounds good.
I used evaporust in the wallpaper trays. One gallon of Evaporust + some quart-sized, leak-proof, ziplock bags filled with water creates enough volume to submerge the frame tubes in evaporust. I have used it to soak the head, top, and down tubes as well as the forks (laid on their sides). The ones I have are a wee bit too narrow to fit the rear triangle (OLD= 126), but narrower OLD might fare better or double the effort with half-submerged tubes.
For the seat tube, I usually use super fine steel wool (#0000) looped around a coat hanger and a drill. Later, the same contraption with a marine greased, plastic scrub pad to coat the seat tube. If you can find the right size rubber stopper, you could probably plug the seat tube at the BB and fill it up with evaporust.
I'd like to try an OA bath because I think the OA crystals are cheaper than evaporust, but I haven't found (and haven't looked too hard) for good information about what concentration OA to use and the exposure time. So, guess I'll have to do some research.