Hey all, I just booked a job where there is some minor rust staining and light oil staining. I see everybody suggesting F9 and OA for rust stain removal, however I’m (unfortunately) located in Canada where chems are extremely limited. Do you think Citric acid would have a similar result as OA? Or is there any other product/chemical you can recommend to use that may be available in this god forsaken country? I set the customers expectations as “lighter but not completely gone”
Any feedback is appreciate folks
You should be able to buy a rust remover from lowes if you cant get anything else
Unfortunately not much there besides CLR. I have some citric acid kicking for when I do decks that I could try. But I priced it relatively low so I’d prefer to not be there for more than 2 hours. I’ve found some OA but it’s $80 for 5lbs… not sure how sustainable that is lol
Yeah its like 20 bucks for 5lb normally. idk if clr would work i imagine maybe some but citric wont work on rust only as a wood brightener i believe
Noted! Thank you for the response 
Citric won’t have much if any effects on the rust. OA would help for sure…F9 definitely.
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@Kentucky1234 no f9 in Canada unfortunately… may just order the big expensive bag of OA 
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Oxalic can be ordered off of Amazon, but they may not be able to ship that to you in Canada.
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@PPWofLexSC yeah, like I said above I can get a 5lb bag for like $30… but to ship it here costs me 40 
its like any chemical that’s useful to our industry is impossible to find here, and not many Canadians that I can discuss alternatives with. Such is life I suppose!
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Toilet bowl cleaner works, too. The gel kind is nice because it can dwell for quite a while without drying out. Only issue is for a large area you’d need quite a bit and typically you want to treat the entire area so that you don’t have patchiness. Good luck with it.
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The active ingredient to Bar keepers friend is Oxalic acid. It should work and it is dirt cheap.
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You could look at Auto parts store for a spray bottle of wire wheel cleaner and try it on a spot. Won’t be as good on rust as F9, but cheaper.
I managed to find a local supplier of OA thankfully so I’m gonna grab a bag of that. Still $41CAD for 5lbs but better than nothing I suppose! Will update the thread when I finish the job in June thanks everyone
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Big shot supply is in Canada. They are out of Vancouver and ship across the country. They have OA and F9.
