Cleaning that rusty nasty hardware

Thought I would share this. Old bikes have old crusty hardware. I took this ugly fender bracket off earlier tonight. I soaked it for a few hours in apple cider vinegar and give a scrub with an old tooth brush followed by a rinse in water mixed with baking soda.. rusty parts might have to sit over night. For chrome items I use regular vinegar





after a couple hours

Cleaning off rust is good, unless you protect the metal in some way it's going to come back though.

A home zinc plating kit will take your hardware clean up to the next level. It's easy to do and relatively cheap. Caswell's Plating sells kits or you can use one of the various internet tutorials out there. Once you make the jump to doing your own zinc it's hard to go back.