Best drill / angle grinder attachment to attack rust

[Heaveho]

I've tried a few on different things over the years, but wondered if there was a particular product people were aware of that stood out as being exceptional. I'm not interested in rust converters, I have no faith in them, I want whatever is the best thing to get back to bright metal before prepping for paint.

[Another project]

I've found the drill wire wheels a bit crap as they just don't spin as fast as an angle grinder, but I'd get a few different styles of wire wheels to give options to get into difficult spaces

[colin_p]

4" or 5" mini grinder and a wire wheel or cup brush is very effective.

[Jbliss]

ive found these great. and won't remove good metal either

https://www.toolstation.com/abracs-poly-abrasive-d...

[Belle427]

Some slightly more aggressive ones here too if needed.
https://www.rust.co.uk/product/cat/zip-wheels-rust...

[peterperkins]

Get on this YT channel and look through his videos. He has tested all this stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProjectFarm/videos

[V8covin]

The best would be a sand blaster if you want to be sure you've removed every bit of rust.
These work for small areas..... assuming you have a decent compressor
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/154632398955?mkcid=16&a...

[paintman]

Note the comment 'decent compressor'.
Unless the one you've got is capable as a minimum of delivering both the volume and pressure given for the blaster you'd be better throwing the medium by hand.

[somouk]

I use those abrasive disks on my grinder, recently did an old set of gates with them and compared to the wire brushes on a drill they were amazing.

Some limitations of getting them in to tight spaces but larger open areas they flew through.

[toasty]

I can't wait for these to become affordable.

[Chris32345]

toasty said:

I can't wait for these to become affordable.

Same even if as a rental for a reasonable rate say £40-0; for. A day

[Heaveho]

Thanks for all the replies. I got the job done at the beginning of the week and detailed the process in readers cars. This is the condensed version in pics.

I straightened the seams with a pair of mole grips and a hammer. Then set about it with abrasives.







The above is what I ended up with after a go with the wire wheel attachment. Below is after I dug into the pits with the little stone grinder. Perfectly bright and strong metal, better than I hoped.



I went berserk with stone chip, then finished it with body colour and lacquer. I'm going to access the sill cavities and get some dinitrol or suchlike in there next.





Very happy with the results considering what I started with.

[bearman68]

Can't fault the effort, and the results look great.

However, I noted your reservations around rust killer.
In my experience, the stuff that looks like milk does a very good job, and I would prefer to use this than hack all the rust off. Firstly it's really hard to get all the rust off, secondly, you can't get into all the little crevice's, and thirdly, the rust killer actual gives you a decent base to paint.

However, everyone is different, and I won't argue too much with your results. You must have been filthy when you finished that.

[Polly Grigora]

Nice

[Heaveho]

bearman68 said:

Can't fault the effort, and the results look great.

However, I noted your reservations around rust killer.
In my experience, the stuff that looks like milk does a very good job, and I would prefer to use this than hack all the rust off. Firstly it's really hard to get all the rust off, secondly, you can't get into all the little crevice's, and thirdly, the rust killer actual gives you a decent base to paint.

However, everyone is different, and I won't argue too much with your results. You must have been filthy when you finished that.

Yeah, I wasn't the cleanest I've ever been!

The seams looked really grotty when I started, I spent about 4 hours a side in total from start to finish with the various stages of prep to final lacquer. This is the vehicle in question, it's been ours for 12 years, done 127k miles, and is the first car I've ever had to do rust repairs on, but it's pretty irreplaceable reliability wise, so worth the effort.

[bearman68]

I think for that car, I would have been willing to spend 4 hours getting dirty too. Rare as rocking horse poo as well, especially the estate version.

[Heaveho]

bearman68 said:

I think for that car, I would have been willing to spend 4 hours getting dirty too. Rare as rocking horse poo as well, especially the estate version.

Thanks, it's been great for us. It's had very little other than servicing and maintenance, exceptionally reliable car. I can't think of a way to replace it, so I'm happy to spend time and effort ( and money ) on it.