is it impossible?

[chippieshaun]

What the hell is going on here?
I cleaned out the rusty seams with a wire brush (drill attachment) 'till they were shiney silver. Made sure i was thorough.
Then treated with that vactan stuff , that everyone raves about on here.
Then sprayed over with etch primer........one week later and the rust is coming through again
I didnt even get a chance to seal the seams up and spray over.
I thought it would be held at bay for more than a week!
I've heard some say that they treated with vactan and has kept rust away for a while even without priming!

So , where am i going wrong?????

[Mr Bean]

What the hell is going on here?
I cleaned out the rusty seams with a wire brush (drill attachment) 'till they were shiney silver. Made sure i was thorough.
Then treated with that vactan stuff , that everyone raves about on here.
Then sprayed over with etch primer........one week later and the rust is coming through again
I didnt even get a chance to seal the seams up and spray over.
I thought it would be held at bay for more than a week!
I've heard some say that they treated with vactan and has kept rust away for a while even without priming!

So , where am i going wrong?????

I do wonder if it would have still happened if you had covered it with top coat. In my experience primers of any description tend to be slightly porous and can allow rust to show through in a few damp days. Plus they need to penetrate which ain't allways achieveable. Clearly the rust treament is either rubbish or just didn't soak into the area needed. For this reason I tend to use a heatgun to dry (almost burn) seams and paint slightly diluted hamerite into the cracks after a severe attack with a wire wheel on a drill. I guess a proper rust neutraliser would be better but I think the application process needs to be just right.
Regards
Wolfie

[chippieshaun]

I do wonder if it would have still happened if you had covered it with top coat. In my experience primers of any description tend to be slightly porous and can allow rust to show through in a few damp days. Plus they need to penetrate which ain't allways achieveable. Clearly the rust treament is either rubbish or just didn't soak into the area needed. For this reason I tend to use a heatgun to dry (almost burn) seams and paint slightly diluted hamerite into the cracks after a severe attack with a wire wheel on a drill. I guess a proper rust neutraliser would be better but I think the application process needs to be just right.
Regards
Wolfie

interesting technique with the heat gun.
I have actually just re - read the instructions on the vactan label and it states that it should be applied above 10 degrees (celsius).
mmmm....dont think it quite hit 10 degrees last saturday.....think it was more like freezing!!
Seems (no pun intended!) that i will have to wait for warmer times to sort it out.
I was told that a good quality etch primer would keep the water out for a while after treating.
Will have another go soon as it warms up!

[Nicola&Tony]

I've got quite a few seams to do again this summer, after many, many hours spent on careful preparation before applying vactan last summer. It looked great at first, but only lasted a few weeks. I won't be using it again.

Tony

[chippieshaun]

I've got quite a few seams to do again this summer, after many, many hours spent on careful preparation before applying vactan last summer. It looked great at first, but only lasted a few weeks. I won't be using it again.

Tony

interesting.....thanks for that.

[fairwynds]

why did you use an etching primer on steel?
I agree, use a wire wheel to expose the seam and then a Dremmel with the various supplied attachments to really get into the seam. Most of the rust problems on these van come from behind the seam (ie wheel arches) so dont forget to tackle both sides or you will just be wasting your time. And yes, most primers are porous prior to topcoating.
FW

[CovKid]

You'll always have trouble with seams by their very nature, particularly if you can't get to the other side of them. No point doing one side as it will just work its way back through again. I have used Vactan on seams but as with any rust treatment its only going to work if you treat all of it. Not much point using a heatgun either as you'll quickly get a layer of condensation and you'll be back to square one. This really isn't a good time of year to do this. May/June are the best months for doing any kind of bodywork because of the prolonged drier weeks. I first started using Vactan (and each to their own on what they choose) on narrowboats and was astonished by its properties. The military use it.

There is no magic cure for rust, do understand that. Once metal starts to change, it will always try to continue to do so and you can only slow its progress. I used to work with a classic car restorer who used etch primers, all sorts, and no matter how wonderul each one looked, he always used to say "Yeah looks great but it'll be back here in 20 years time looking like it did when it came in" and he's right. Steel will rust, Its a fact of life. Over the years many different kind of treatments and finishes have been developed that protect steel for far longer but ultimately it only takes a chip in the paint and off it will go again.

To put this in context, rusty areas on the body (not seams), cleaned up and treated with vactan work brilliantly but seams have two sides to them. I can certainly verify (from experience) that where I was able to treat both sides, it seemed to halt the rust but where I only treated the outside, it came back through again. You get a lot of condensation inside these vehicles and thats enough to keep the rust going in those areas.

[stevep113]

Nothing to do with seams, not started that yet, but i used vactan on some bare metal on our camper last yr, to date the area treated has not shown any rust; not painted over either.

[Nicola&Tony]

Did both sides of the seams (i.e. inside and outside the van) on the panel behind the fridge. Also sprayed waxoil over the back of the seams that had been vactan'd on the inside of the panel. If it needed doing again in 2 years time I would've been happy.

Tony

[Rozzo]

What the hell is going on here?
I cleaned out the rusty seams with a wire brush (drill attachment) 'till they were shiney silver. Made sure i was thorough.
Then treated with that vactan stuff , that everyone raves about on here.
Then sprayed over with etch primer........one week later and the rust is coming through again
I didnt even get a chance to seal the seams up and spray over.
I thought it would be held at bay for more than a week!
I've heard some say that they treated with vactan and has kept rust away for a while even without priming!

So , where am i going wrong?????

ok since everybody has missed the plot heres what you did wrong.
vatcan reacts with the rust to convert it to an enamel like substance which then seals the oxygen from the metal, preventing further oxidisation. this can then be sanded, flatted and painted (or painted directly over) what you did wrong was remove all the rust back to shiny metal so the reaction could not take place. vatcan is not a preventer, its a treatment for existing rust.
so if anyone is going to use vatcan, paint it liberally onto the existing rust,, stippling it in where needed and then allow it to react. you'll know its worked when the rust goes jet black and glassy on the surface. used correctly it treats the rust all the way back to the metal behind the rust and completely stops rust dead. temperature seems to affect it too so don't try it around zero degrees.

all those who arent going to use theirs anymore please give it to me

[Rozzo]

heres some info i pulled from the net regarding etching primer for info:
" You can apply your high build primer or body filler over the self-etching primer but be careful it is not a finished product by it self.

In other words you can't apply it and then push the car back outside, it has to have a sealed surface over it, water will reverse the reaction and will pull the zinc back out.

Self-etching primer comes as two parts or ready to spray and also comes in aerosol.

I use it when ever I see bare metal or if I'm putting one metal against another. For instance steel screws in aluminum or on welds."

2nd mistake perhaps
i think it's all a learning curve and when its all done correctly should be worth the effort

[Nicola&Tony]

. . . what you did wrong was remove all the rust back to shiny metal so the reaction could not take place. vatcan is not a preventer, its a treatment for existing rust.

From what you've said then Rozzo, if I do the prep and end-up with shiny metal instead of rust, what should I put on it, just primer and paint instead of the vactan?

Tony

[CovKid]

No the vactan is fine but doesn't matter what rust treatment or primer you use, if theres an area you can't get to, it'll creep back. Vactan definately better than conventional primer if its to be left for any time as most primers, particularly high-build, are porous. You could put some vactan in a cheap hand pump sprayer to force it into all gaps. As others will testify, vactan on its own will sort out patches of rust but its a two stage thing, changing the structure of the rust as well as sealing it. I once painted it on a slightly rusty boat hook left out in all weathers and there was no deterioration a year later which is what convinced me. You only need a trace of untreated rust though and it'll be back big time.

I used a combination of a small recycling grit blaster in seams coupled with liberal treament of vactan on both sides, some squeezed in using the sprayer I mention. Not had any probs on the areas I did like that since. As the old saying goes - you must have missed a bit. If the metal is particularly thin, you'll need to spend a lot longer on it. Personally I'd be inclined to treat with vactan and make sure it was stable before putting anything else on.

[horizontal kipper]

PUT POR 15 METAL READY ON IT THEN COAT IT WITH POR 15 PAINT OR EVEN BETTER RUST BULLET.
dont get any on your skin cause it dont come off.

[chippieshaun]

Brilliant!
Loads of interesting comments that i (and lots of others) will read over a few times and try to digest!
Definately seems that i should leave it alone for the moment until weather gets warmer.
Bit of a constant battle , it would seem! (i can't seem to stop using the word 'seem' , it would seem!)
Thanks all!