i THOUGHT THE ACID MIGHT BE TOO STRONG AND WEAKEND THE SPRINGS. Sorry about yelling. Didn't know the cap lock was down.

The weakening your concerned about Wildturkey is called “stress corrosion cracking” and it is a valid concern but you took precautions and neutralized the steel hopefully quickly. The sooner you do this the better for the trap parts that have stress built in them from forming such as the springs, jaw corners, jaw tips, etc. but the springs are the biggest concern.

Acids can be bad so I never use it. Rinsing and neutralizing is imperative as they form salts that really promote rusting when they react with the rust. The acid can attack certain steels as well so the baking soda rinse is also needed. I bet your traps are fine.

Rust is the real enemy of springs. I like long springs so replacing springs is a real pain and expense. They last literally forever if they don’t get too rusty. Dye stops rust and offers some protection from future rust under the layer of iron tannate anyhow. I have always found that dye treats rust effectively. My last dye pot of the year I save in the shed. Traps that made catches and had a lot of the wax rubbed off, sometimes reused in remakes, can get a little rust on them again. I just drop them in the cold dye pot until the end of season. Stops the rust until they’re cleaned next summer.

Recently a friend and I bought a collection of old traps from an estate. After finding this topic on here I started my soak with three five gallon buckets and a 15 gallon barrel. I put 1.5 gallons of vinegar in each 5 gallon bucket and 4 gallons in the 15 gallon barrel, then topped all of them off with water. They sat for 3 days and I pressure washed them yesterday. WOW!!! All of the old traps look brand new!!! I even put in some of my newer traps that had seen better days, these didn’t come as clean as the older traps, but it’s just dye that remains, no rust. I did see a difference in the traps I left sitting for a couple hours before neutralizing in baking soda water and the traps that were neutralized very shortly after power washing, as the ones that sat for a couple hours have a thin layer of rust that started to form (which I’m fine with). I’m going to throw more traps in the buckets today and see if this mix is reusable. I don’t expect to be able to use it several times, just curious if it will still be effective for a second round…. And if so, maybe a third… does anyone have any experience or advice with using the same vinegar/water mix for multiple runs of traps? I’d imagine the acid has to lose its effectiveness at some point.

Don't put them in your wife's dish washer!!!

Unless she’s out of town-take them out right after end of cycle as they can leave some nasty rust spots

The vinegar solution will eventually become less acidic. You can test it easily with a small pinch of baking soda. Just drop it in. If it fizzes, the acid is still in solution. If not, or not much, it’s mostly used up. A new gallon of vinegar will wake it up.

I use 50\50 water vinegar mix. A couple of days then pressure wash. When dry I spray paint them. This is done in the spring when it is warm enough here. I try to all of this plus repairs now so it is grab and go in the fall.

The second round of soak didn't go nearly as well. Some of the traps came clean, but most of them weren't nearly as clean as the first round- even when pressure washing after pulling.

You can always add vinegar to a solution that lost it’s acidity. Are you going to boil them in trap dye? If so, a little rust on them is fine. It’ll get turned into a slightly protective coating by the logwood dye. I would only clean traps with acid if they are really caked with rust, otherwise I clean, boil and wax.

I'm stripping down older traps that have seen better days. The land traps will be dyed and waxed, the water traps will all be dipped in the Rustoleum Rusty Metal Primer/Acetone mix 2-3 times.

I just soak em all night in dawn dish detergent then dry and spray paint

A word of caution about cleaning traps with any of the above methods.

IF you have traps with potential collector value - you will DECREASE the value by cleaning them to bare metal. It is ok to wash away dirt and loose rust but that tight rust is supposed to be there on old traps. It is called PATINA. Patina on collector traps is good.

In one of the videos I watched I think you were boiling the traps in the PBW. Is the boiling required?

Thanks