Sound technical content, curated with aloha by
Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Pine Beach, NJ
The authoritative public forum
for Metal Finishing since 1989
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Will refinishing a wood stove contaminate the earth?
Q. I recently bought a cabin that has a Franklin wood stove and a Monarch wood cooking stove. Both are quite rusted. My question: If I follow any of the suggestions about refinishing the stoves, what do I do about the paint or rust residue? Isn't it toxic? If I do the work outside, won't it contaminate the ground and possibly the ground water? Excuse my ignorance.
Another question: Once the rust has been removed and my Franklin re-painted, can it be used outdoors without rusting again? Thanks.
Self employed - San Francisco, California, USA
2006
A. Check out threads 24148 and 22463. They may help you out a bit.
Good luck!
Compton, California, USA
A. Hi John. A simple coat of paint may do for indoor use, but for extended use outdoors you'll need careful pretreatment (the stove spotlessly clean, then phosphated with naval jelly or similar), then 2 or 3 careful coats of paint. Look to today's automobiles to appreciate how effectively proper finishing can protect metal.
We applaud your environmental awareness, but the earth is made of iron, and rust residue is of zero concern whatsoever; the dirt is already more than 5% iron; you won't be changing it at all. Most paints are safe for the environment when used properly; and pretreatment & paint is imperative to slow/stop the rusting.
More importantly, allowing things to rust away and require replacement demands re-mining ore, re-smelting it, re-casting it, re-fabricating the stove, refinishing it, re-packaging it, and reselling it -- with extensive transportation waste between each of these energy intensive steps.
Opinion! Metal finishing is an absolutely vital component of sustainability and you are doing the earth a solid when you focus on sustainability by proper finishing! Unfortunately, many governments (including Bay Area, California, & USA authorities), hounded lots of excellent metal finishers out of business by focusing on the ounce of phosphate they needed to protect a ton of steel (and similar bureaucratic foolishness) -- leaving us all with the now-familiar Chinese metal crap which lasts 2 to 3 years at best outdoors when we've known since wood stove days how to finish metal items so they can easily last 10X as long outdoors, thus reducing all that mining, smelting, casting, fabricating, finishing, and transportation by a factor of 10X as well.
Please guard carefully against the drumbeat and becoming part of the environmental disgrace of short-sightedly focusing on the ounce of rust you are brushing off rather than the thousand pounds of carefully manufactured metal you will be rescuing.
Luck & Regards,
Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
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