leaky batteries!

From: Joe <rigdonj_at_cfl.rr.com>
Date: Tue Dec 2 12:55:19 2003

At 10:11 AM 12/2/03 -0800, you wrote:
>>From: "Vintage Computer Festival" <vcf_at_siconic.com>
>>
>>On Tue, 2 Dec 2003, Joe wrote:
>>
>>> The BEST thing for leaky batteries is a product called "Lime-Away".
>>> It's sold in grocery stores and is used to remove stains caused by hard
>>> water. Get the liquid stuff, not the gell. Put it on full strength a
>>> wait a few minutes then wash/brush it off. It won't harm plastics. The
>>> main ingediant is phosphoric acid and it will leave a phosphate coating
>>> on some metals. The phosphate coating is similar to parkerizing and will
>>> help prevent future corrosion. It's by far the best thing I've found for
>>> corroded batteries.
>>
>>I'm assuming that CLR ("Calcium, Lime, Rust") is also good? Or is the
>>"Calcium-Rust" component of the formula not good for plastics?
>>
>Hi Sellam
> I suspect that it is the same thing. It may use some other
>acid but for the cleaning part it should work OK. I've used
>phosphoric acid treatment on a boat trailer that I had to protect
>from the dunkings I did in salt water. So far, the paint
>has been on for about 10 years and there is no flaking of
>the paint caused by rust under the paint. The are some small
>rust stain lines where the paint is cracked. If it had been
>any other undercoating method, I'm sure these cracks would
>have allowed the rust to spread under the paint and peeled
>the paint off. It is interesting that I never knew what the
>process was called ( Parkerizing ). I do know it works but
>often when I talk to other boat people, they don't know what
>I'm talking about. Maybe I just didn't use the right name.

  "Parkerize" is actually a trade name that belongs to the Parker Chemical
company so other companies MUST call their products/treatments by another
name but there are many companies that offer the same or similar
treatments. However the term Parkerizing has been in use since at least WW
II and is almost always used genericly for these types of treatments.
"Parkerizing" is the name of the treatment that was used on both the M1
Garand Rifle (1936) and M1 Carbine (19410 in place of blueing. I don't know
if the manufacturers actually used the Parker process but all of the
manuals for those guns always refer to the finish as "Parkerizing".

   BTW if you've ever used Navel Jelly it leaves the same kind of finish.
The main ingrediant in Navel Jelly is phosphoric acid. I've tried using it
on electronics but it's difficult to remove since it's a gell. I had the
same problem with the gelled Lime-Away.

   Joe
Received on Tue Dec 02 2003 - 12:55:19 GMT