Cleaning Plated Cylinders

[guitardude081]

Muriatic acid can be purchased at hardware stores. It is commonly used on masonry.

Be very careful with muriatic acid. Always wear a mask, the stuff is pretty noxious. Apply it with a Q-tip only to the affected areas. The stuff eats aluminum very, very quickly. Once the acid is on the affected areas for 30 seconds scrub it off with a clean Q-tip and repeat the process until it is gone or it's something a light hone will remove. Once the acid is swabbed for the last time, rinse the cylinder in warm water to neutralize it. Don't soak the whole cylinder in acid! As for honing, use a soft dingleberry (ball) hone. Run it in and out no more than 6 or 7 times. DO NOT use a gem (stone style) hone, it will tear the chrome to shreds. Once your cylinders are clean, rub some dawn dish soap all around in the bores and brush them good with a soft toothbrush. Rinse with warm water. Then, spray a CLEAN shop towel with WD-40 and wipe the bores until the towel comes up clean. Do the WD-40 thing right away especially if you don't have a water softener at your house. Hard water will leave water spots (minerals...friction enhancers if you will) similar to what happens after a bad car wash. Once you are ready to reassemble, wipe the WD out with a dry shop rag and lube the cylinder with assembly oil. I use the handy dandy blue shop towels for pretty much everything. At $1.67 a roll, you can't go wrong. Take your time on this one, wash your hands after every step, make it count.