How do I clean a very rusty ring burner?

[kwnyk]

Hi fabulous community, 

Looking for guidance if there is any one how best to remove the rust from this ring burner? Or is it

not salvageable? 

Do I require the use of a sander or could this be achieved with a chemical job? 

Thank you in advance

[MitchellMc]

Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community @kwnyk. It's wonderful to have you join us, and many thanks for your question about ring burners.

Typically, those ring burners are constructed from uncoated cast iron, so it's not unusual for them to rust like this. However, given that they are a gas appliance, the potential risk involved and that it would be a substantial amount of work to make it look pretty again, I'd recommend you consider buying a new Gasmate Cast Iron Burner - 2 Ring Burner. I'm not sure how much your time is worth, but by the time you purchase a chemical cleaner, sandpaper and put in hours of work, you're going to be halfway to the cost of a new one and have several blisters.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Mitchell
 

[kwnyk]

Thank you for the warm welcome I have been a long time lurker. 

I hate seeing this going into land fill so keen to apply the elbow grease. I have seen people use a sander that I can borrow from friends if need be and have plenty of bandaids for said blisters  

Happy to hear how I can get this clean the long way! 

[MitchellMc]

I'm all for a good restoration project, but I'm not sure whether this should be it for you, @kwnyk. It would be next to impossible to sand all the areas, especially around the jets. You could try taking a wire wheel to it, which should help knock off the majority of the rust. However, any coating on the metal is long since gone, and as soon as you remove the rust, it will begin coming back on the exposed iron. High-temp paints are really out of the question as they'd be within the flame zone. To inhibit the rust from coming straight back, you'd need to coat it with oil after each use.

Let me mention @dave1 and @Nailbag to get their thoughts.

Mitchell

[Noyade]

Afternoon @kwnyk 

I'd be going down the wire brush method - elbow grease.

Wire wheel only if you have variable speed on your angle grinder.

Then liberal use of vegetable oil as per Mitchell.

Cheers.

[Nailbag]

Hi @kwnyk 

It looks like the burner is in pretty good condition structuraly and just has a build up of surface corrosion. If you're not going to replace it as @MitchellMc suggested, I would tackle it manually with WD40 or RP7 and a narrow wire brush. I use one of these narrow slightly curved ones with great success and easy to use. Just need to put some time and muscle in to it.

Personally I would avoid a wire brush on an angle grinder. As @Noyade suggested it would need to be a variable speed model which most aren't. They are difficult to control and the fine strands of wires fly off very easily, so you need to be well covered with long pants, sleeves, gloves and eye protection.

Nailbag