How to keep inside of frame dry (repeatedly hosing it while rawing)

Sounds to me like you're not leaving the paint stripper on long enough, or its just really bad stripper. What do the instructions say? I used cheap stuff to raw my frame and the majority only took 2 coats. I used a paint brush to put it on, and put loads of it everywhere, left it for a good hour (perfect opportunity to have a cuppa and watch a bmx video), then buffed it off with an old t shirt. There's paint strippers out there that would take it down to bare metal in seconds, unfortunately due to the chemicals used, they're banned over here now. Starchem is good if you have that over there.

As for the main question. You shouldn't need to hose your frame down. Wd40 is a degreaser and penetrating spray, it's not really going to prevent rust, and can even cause it (by removing all greasey substances, leaving the bare metal exposed). Find a Teflon or ptfe based spray (GT85 or muc off mo94 are both really good to have kicking around for all sorts of things) and spray it all over the insides of the tubes

grumpySteve wrote:

Sounds to me like you're not leaving the paint stripper on long enough, or its just really bad stripper. What do the ...more

grumpySteve wrote:

Sounds to me like you're not leaving the paint stripper on long enough, or its just really bad stripper. What do the instructions say? I used cheap stuff to raw my frame and the majority only took 2 coats. I used a paint brush to put it on, and put loads of it everywhere, left it for a good hour (perfect opportunity to have a cuppa and watch a bmx video), then buffed it off with an old t shirt. There's paint strippers out there that would take it down to bare metal in seconds, unfortunately due to the chemicals used, they're banned over here now. Starchem is good if you have that over there.

As for the main question. You shouldn't need to hose your frame down. Wd40 is a degreaser and penetrating spray, it's not really going to prevent rust, and can even cause it (by removing all greasey substances, leaving the bare metal exposed). Find a Teflon or ptfe based spray (GT85 or muc off mo94 are both really good to have kicking around for all sorts of things) and spray it all over the insides of the tubes

...more

Oh I was leaving it on for a very long time, but that container (pictured in the photo above) is like 2yrs old and almost empty, so since (i'd guess) the chemicals doing the stripping are probably solvents that evaporate, it's quite possible the stripper's more gel and less stripper at this point - am certainly intending to get a new can to try, because it seems others have great luck with stripper gel but for me time made no difference, I mean I'd even wrap the tubing (after smearing it with the gel) with a trash bag, so the gel's solvents wouldn't evaporate quickly, and I've had that frame outside for days and days (most of the past week) and each day I'll go out a few times and put a couple large blobs of gel on each tube, rub it in, then go back out every ~20min to just slide the blobs around - it worked and made a big difference, but not enough (I'm not going to apply more, not from the container I've got anyways, at this point I'm just using my handheld, light-duty sander and going over the thing repeatedly with 60grit pads, hopefully this afternoon I'll have it done :D

Re sealing the inside, I had to hose it to get that gel off (how else would you remove it?), but yeah I'm real interested in teflon or ptfe spray for this, where would I go to find such things? I'm just really worried that, if I could see inside the tubing, I'd be concerned about the amount of rust inside the thing....My hope was to figure out which (if any) solvents tear through rust, pour some in and get as much rust out as possible, and *then* go and apply whatever protective coating would help most (then let the frame sit in various angles for days til I've gotten all the excess sealant out!)

Thanks for the reply, was very helpful! Hoping I can figure out the ptfe or teflon thing!

(you seem like you may know the answer to this - have you heard of 'Carbon assembly gel', and do you think it'd be useful for where parts clamp together like stem onto steer-tube or stem onto handlebars?)

Yeah the stripper probably has a shelf life, it really shouldn't take that much effort! I literally just used a couple of old t shirts to wipe all the stripper off my frame.
Carbon paste is specifically made for carbon parts. For example, if you've got a carbon seat post going into a carbon frame, the post will slip as carbon isn't the grippiest thing. So carbon paste is designed to give that grip, but also acts as an anti seize compound. You really shouldn't need it on anything on a bmx. Just metal against metal is the best way to go (plus, it might affect the efficency of the clamping area and make it worse?). But use a bit of grease as anti seize for your seat post, cranks, threads etc.

Muc off have a US distributor now, so pretty much any bike shop should be able to get mo94. If not they'll likely have an alternative. Just have a look at the lubes and cleaning section, or ask someone. Some hardware stores would probably have something similar too. But the muc off mo94 smells nice

grumpySteve wrote:

Sounds to me like you're not leaving the paint stripper on long enough, or its just really bad stripper. What do the ...more

grumpySteve wrote:

Sounds to me like you're not leaving the paint stripper on long enough, or its just really bad stripper. What do the instructions say? I used cheap stuff to raw my frame and the majority only took 2 coats. I used a paint brush to put it on, and put loads of it everywhere, left it for a good hour (perfect opportunity to have a cuppa and watch a bmx video), then buffed it off with an old t shirt. There's paint strippers out there that would take it down to bare metal in seconds, unfortunately due to the chemicals used, they're banned over here now. Starchem is good if you have that over there.

As for the main question. You shouldn't need to hose your frame down. Wd40 is a degreaser and penetrating spray, it's not really going to prevent rust, and can even cause it (by removing all greasey substances, leaving the bare metal exposed). Find a Teflon or ptfe based spray (GT85 or muc off mo94 are both really good to have kicking around for all sorts of things) and spray it all over the insides of the tubes

...more

What other things do you find yourself using GT85 or mo94 for? Would those be easier to source from automotive stores, or hardware stores?

grumpySteve wrote:

Sounds to me like you're not leaving the paint stripper on long enough, or its just really bad stripper. What do the ...more

grumpySteve wrote:

Sounds to me like you're not leaving the paint stripper on long enough, or its just really bad stripper. What do the instructions say? I used cheap stuff to raw my frame and the majority only took 2 coats. I used a paint brush to put it on, and put loads of it everywhere, left it for a good hour (perfect opportunity to have a cuppa and watch a bmx video), then buffed it off with an old t shirt. There's paint strippers out there that would take it down to bare metal in seconds, unfortunately due to the chemicals used, they're banned over here now. Starchem is good if you have that over there.

As for the main question. You shouldn't need to hose your frame down. Wd40 is a degreaser and penetrating spray, it's not really going to prevent rust, and can even cause it (by removing all greasey substances, leaving the bare metal exposed). Find a Teflon or ptfe based spray (GT85 or muc off mo94 are both really good to have kicking around for all sorts of things) and spray it all over the insides of the tubes

...more

adfkje wrote:

What other things do you find yourself using GT85 or mo94 for? Would those be easier to source from automotive stores, or ...more

adfkje wrote:

What other things do you find yourself using GT85 or mo94 for? Would those be easier to source from automotive stores, or hardware stores?

...more

It's made for bikes, so bike shops would be the best bet. But I'm sure if the shop doesn't have it they'll have something the same by a different brand.

I use it to clean my bike and that's about it. But I use it on my wife's mtb to lube cables, and keep it rust free. It's good for cleaning threads and things like that