Originally Posted by
nlerner
I’ve done the oxalic acid bath thing previously. I used half of a cardboard box, sized for the frame, and lined it with heavy duty plastic. A problem was what do to with that “tub” once the process was complete. It was too heavy to lift and dump in the sink; too low to siphon. I think this time I’ll use a smaller container and go one tube at a time or try the soaked paper towels wrapped in Saran method.
I put a two bits of 2x4 about 12 inches long across the ends of the bottom of my box, they made it just high enough to siphon, goes a bit slowly at the end.
It sounds as if your box had the frame lying flat. I did that the first time, built a frame about 8 inches high on a 4x8 sheet of ply - the frame just large enough to contain the bicycle frame plus an inch or so. I lined the thing the same way (was easier) and filled it as was with the acid. The I put bricks in between the frame tubes to take up space and make the acid level rise high enough to cover the bike frame. It worked, but now I have the vertical arrangement I like that much better. For a one-off a flat cardboard box tub (with bricks) sounds like a great simple solution.