Man, you guys weren't kidding about using vinegar to get an old trap back to bare metal!! I got some #1 long springs from a couple of you guys on here, and some of them looked like they were with Noah on the ark! I soaked them in straight vinegar for 2 days as was recommended in another thread. Took them to the car wash, dumped them out on the ground, put power washer on "rinse", and went to town on them. SPOTLESS!!!! Well, almost. Maybe a small spot on a few of them, but to go from COVERED with hard rust, to bare metal, looking like new. I would have never expected this kind of result.

Pretty cool trick!!!

Now you need to dip or paint to protect. Otherwise, your back to square one.

Sarge

I use 30% vinegar to take zinc off of hardware. Works pretty good and makes for nice old looking hinges for furniture.

Yup!! Will be doing that this afternoon. I put them back in the bucket, covered with 50/50 vinegar and water till I can get to them. Will rinse and dry, then probably go with paint as these will be my water traps. Unless there is a dip that is made for water traps that lasts a long time. Someone mentioned Formula One, but it's a bit expensive. I guess ya get what ya pay for though.

For water traps paint is the way to go in my opinion

The vinegar bath is a great way to clean user traps. However - do NOT use it to clean collector traps. It will lower the value.

Collector traps should not be cleaned to bare metal! They are supposed to have a patina!

Just saying.

Vinegar works great to clean dirty traps! Just don’t leave them in for too too long, because vinegar will weaken the springs. I have personal experience with that!

How long is too long? I haven't noticed a problem

Dakota Line makes a dip

Muriatic acid does the same thing but in 4-5 minutes instead of 2 days.

Yeah, I would like to know the answer to this as well. I didn't notice ANY difference in the springs before and after the 3 day treatment. Just very impressed at how well it worked! Springs are still plenty strong for my purposes, but I'd like to know what the "safe" limit is. Just curious is all. There isn't much acid in vinegar - maybe 5% or a little more at most, I think. I can't imagine that would hurt metal for quite some time. Specially if diluted with water. This is interesting.

AJE- have you used that dip from Dakota Line? If so, what did ya think? I was thinking about just using paint, but is this dip better than paint? I'd be willing to try it if someone has good experience with it.

I agree with JP, and yes, this has been a topic with differences before. Vinegar although at 5% is acidic. A long term soak will weaken springs. As far as treating traps, I switched from walnut hulls to 50% acetone or mineral spirits and 50% rustoleum paint years ago. I'll never boil traps again. Nowadays I mainly run a groundhog line and will help out farmers who contact me with other critters and the traps hold up well. I've caught fox setting groundhog holes so they don't seem to mind it.

What about with new traps? Doesn't the oil / grease keep the paint from sticking?

I certainly didn't mean to stir up a hornets nest with this thread. I do a lot of handgun hunting, and one of the topics that was actually banned in our forum a few years ago was the discussion of magnum vs. normal primers. THAT was a heated topic.

If your Wife isn't home put them in the dishwasher, otherwise take them to the carwash, then treat'em.

I think he already took them to the car wash.

I am one of the lucky few in that I married my best friend. My wife doesn't care if I use the dishwasher or not. I just wondered when ya said ya skipped boiling them, if that meant ya skipped cleaning new traps at all and just went straight to paint. Thanks for the clarification. I'm going to try your method on the next set.

Yes, I already took these to the carwash cause I didn't know how easy / hard it would be to get the rust off. I now see that it would have come off just fine in the dishwasher after a soak in the vinegar. I'm learning as I go here, and this is pretty dang interesting!! My next set are new traps, so those will go straight to the dishwasher.

As my one Sister would say, dear Jesus, help me now lol. No man, don't put them in the dishwasher. Take your new traps to the carwash and wash the heck out of them. Then take them home to dry. Then make a 50-50 acetone rustoleum and dip them. Hang till dry, put'em in the shed and then go.

Nature does provide and tannins are awesome. However the 50 50 gets it done in short time. I love trapping groundhogs and it's been 4 year since I treated my traps and they're still good. Mileage will vary.

"How long is too long? I haven't noticed a problem"

I have used the vinegar method successfully to clean traps. It will even remove trap wax quite well.
The first time I used it, things did not go well.

It was the middle of the summer when I decided to clean up some traps with vinegar. I had way too many things going on. I was building a screened in porch, training dogs and taking care of all the home duties etc.

I put about four dozen of my canine traps (That was about all the canine traps I had that were operable. Back in the 70s and 80s I typically kept about 8 or 9 dozen canine traps ready for service) into five gallon pails of straight vinegar. Then I promptly forgot that I needed to watch the traps. Pretty dumb I must admit but like I said, I had too much going on.
The traps sit in the solution probably for a month before I stumbled on them.

The springs were worthless. I was mad at myself and was surprised that the vinegar did that. With all the work I needed to finish before fall I did not have time to put new springs on them, That was the year I first bought some MB500s as I figured they would not require much to get them ready.

Last summer I put 3 dozen forged jaw #3 Victors that were brand new into vinegar to get rid of the oil.
For over fifty year I have spent a lot of time boiling traps to clean them and to dye them. Seems the older I get the lest time I have. Probably just have got really slow.
I let the traps set in the vinegar for 3 days, poured off the top of the solution, hosed them off and let them soak in a baking power solution for about three days. One day would have probably been fine but once again I had a lot going on. The traps were clean as could be.

Hope this helps

Mac