Raven Upstop Restoration Project

This is my upstop from Holiday World's The Raven, which I won for $50 at the HWN charity auction in or around 2006.

An abusive family member decided to throw it in a ditch for a couple of years and it rusted to heck and back. It used to have a lovely smooth finish on the road (uh... under road?) surface. It's been in this state for at least 10 years now.

But there is good news! I built an electrolysis tank to remove rust from my cast iron cookware and now that I've got that process working well, this little guy is in the tank now. It's only been a few hours and about 1/3 of the rust has already shed.

I'll share some progress photos tomorrow afternoon to show how it's going. I can't wait to put this thing on display!

The upstop spent the night in my homemade electrolysis vat and boy is the water rusty now.

Check this out:

The rust in the hole on the grease port seems pretty stuck, but it might come out with more time.

The tank is one of the coolest DIY projects I've ever done and the fact that it's cleaning up this treasure with minimal effort is such a joy.

It'll be in the tank overnight again, another update tomorrow, hopefully!

Once your are done with the tank I would suggest using a wire brush wheel for a drill to finish it off. Then wipe it down with a light oil, or WD40 occasionally.

I've been thinking about that, but I'm not sure I want to risk the brush lines. Do I want to let some of the rust stay for character, and to remember the wheel's story? Or do I want it to look like it just came out of service yesterday? (Had my mother not thrown the thing in a ditch, this wouldn't be happening at all, but that's another story.)

And while you’re at it, season your cast iron, lol.

Use the finest wire wheel you can get, avoid the coarse ones. Emery cloth is also good for polishing steel surfaces. A lot more elbow grease involved with it, but if you are concerned about the final finish it's the way to go. I've polished a lot of carousel crankshafts journals this way.

@RCMAC you mean this cast iron?

Before:

After:

Anyhow, back to the topic at hand, the wheel is going great and it's got another day ahead of it in the tank. Almost all the rust is gone now. I didn't take any photos this morning because I was so excited to get it back in the tank. I'll definitely have some photos this afternoon!

I want to see the tank. All I can picture in my head is...

When the wheel is done maybe you can put your mom in the tank for a bit.

@OhioStater: Here's the tank in its current state. It's just a storage tub with a cheap 12v server power supply. Positive connects to that sheet metal, which collects the rust from the item being cleaned. Negative gets attached to the hook on that 1x4 to hold the item being cleaned. The water has washing soda in it so that it conducts better. The tank is not gross and smelly- all that is rust and iron floating around.

This process actually generates oxygen and hydrogen as the water molecules break down from the electricity. That's where the bubbles and foam come from.

As for the wheel, I couldn't wait to take photos of it, so I pulled it out, dried it, and oiled it up some to look shiny. It's going back into the tank later, but I really wanted to see it and share it.

Here it is after two full days in the tank:

You can see parts of the coating on the road (under road?) surface still intact. That's the reason I didn't just sand blast it or take a brush to it. I wanted to preserve as much of the coating as possible.

Over all I'm really, really happy with this progress so far. I think another day or two and it'll be ready to polish up for display!

I've reached the end of what the electrolysis tank can do and just in time too. That sheet metal I used for the cathode sure is looking rough.

The wheel came out of this soup for the last time this morning and has been soaking in a bowl of 5% vinegar for a few hours.

At this point all the rust should come off with a light brushing and the black dust from the iron should start to detach from the wheel. Here's what it looks like after a few hours in the vinegar.

The spots where the smooth coating is intact feel way smoother now after the soak and the grease port has cleared out of most of its rust after a light brushing with a toothbrush.

The wheel will be back in the vinegar overnight tonight and hopefully after that, I can hit it with a gentle scrub, some brushing, and then oil it up and polish it some. I'm glad to see some of the grey starting to come out in the iron instead of just the rust and black dust.

It should be display ready by mid next week!

Okay, the wheel is out of the vinegar and got another good scrub with soap and water before getting dried and oiled a little bit.

Any rust that's visible is flash rust- which formed after treatment while it was still a little wet with water. Pretty hard to avoid any rust.

I'm super, duper, incredibly happy with how it turned out. Even the rust on the grease port has been cleared. Most of the iron oxide (the black dust) was removed in the vinegar soak and with a soapy scrub.

The very last thing I plan to do is to give it a little bit of a polish. But here it is, all cleaned up!

I do wish the smooth coating was more intact but this is the wheel I have to work with unless someone at Holiday World reads this and wants to send me a new one! ;)

If I ever get around to trying to polish this thing up I will definitely share pics of it. Until then, that's it for this restoration. It was a lot of fun and I'm super happy with it. Thanks for coming along with me!

This was incredibly fun to follow and quite informative. Thank you for sharing.

The rust is your past.

The wheel is a metaphor.

Create your future.