Bilt Hamber Hydrate 80 (500ml)

Product Information

Hammerite tends to be the ‘go-to’ brand for rust protection products, as its paints work so well and need very little preparation. Instead of spending hours underneath a car with a wire brush, you can just slap them onto bare, rusty metal. There are places where Hammerite isn’t ideal though, such as bodywork where you need to overpaint. For these you can use Kurust. It works well, giving the same level of protection in out tests as the Bilt Hamber with just a few spots appearing by the end of our month. Remove loose, flaky rust with a wire brush and abrasive paper (or if favoured power tools). The active ingredients of hydrate 80 must reach the oxidising surface of the steel. Thoroughly degrease the area and wash well with clean water to remove dust and contaminates. Failure to degrease area properly will cause “holidays” or fish-eye like flaws in the barrier When painted on it seemed to sit on the surface of our rust rather than soaking in and reacting. It also took longer to dry, meaning we had to wait until the next day until we could paint over it with our primer and top coat.

https://cdn.opieoils.co.uk/images/variants/large/bilthamber/bilt-hamber-hydrate-80-500ml-bottle-1.jpg Due to the many types of paint formulations and curing processes test compatibility of products at small scale before use. hydrate 80 is an excellent base for a wide range of paint finishes. It is preferable but not essential to use a good quality primer before applying topcoats.

Rust Treatment Comparison

Low viscosity wets out corrosion for full conversion and facilitates penetration of flanges and seams Follow that up by treating everywhere with Electrox. It's a fantastic Zinc Treatment. They sell it either in an aerosol or in a tin, which can be brushed on or thinned down and sprayed on. If you're spraying it on then thin it down with pure Xylene, not regular thinners. Again, give 2 coats. Jenolite is a UK brand that offer a number of rust treatments that have been tried and tested for many years. Their rust converter is their most popular product and is designed to convert rust into a ready to paint surface. Bilt Hamber hydrate 80 is an excellent base for a wide range of paint finishing systems. It is preferable but not essential to use a good quality primer before applying topcoats. It's a primer and magnetite converter in one that takes over six months to fully convert the metal.

If you are getting underneath a car, make sure you use axle stands or ramps and wear eye protection and a mask. Any areas that are holed will need welding, so don’t waste your time with treatment, but surface rust should be rubbed with a wire brush and then painted with a converter. If you are treating a rust bubble on the bodywork, you will want to remove as much of the rust as possible before treating or it will soon reappear under any filler and top coat. I have made holes in the sill to put more wax in after a few years time when the old stuff has lost its effectiveness.

Rust prevention

There are numerous types of these potions on the market, and they all claim to be the best, so we tested a selection of products to see which you should trust to sort your rust. How we tested them Remove loose, flaky rust with a wire brush and abrasive paper (or if favoured power tools). The active ingredients of Hydrate-80 must reach the oxidising surface of the steel. Thoroughly degrease the area and wash well with clean water to remove dust and contaminates. Failure to degrease area properly will cause “holidays” or fish-eye like flaws in the barrier. If you need to treat a large amount of rust it might make financial sense to use the BH, and it was still our favourite paint-on fluid, but we’d make sure we applied a decent amount of corrosion protection on top of the treatment too. Hammerite Kurust – Recommended

The long-term performance of Hydrate-80 has been proven to significantly increase coating life in independent tests conducted by the German TÜV organisation under conditions of VDA 621-415 (6 cycles, or 1008 hrs) which included exposure to hot salt-spray, 100% relative humidity and drying atmospheres with each cycle lasting 168 hours. To return your product, you should mail your product to: Clean and Shiny (UK) Limited , Unit 1 Redan Hill Industrial Estate , Aldershot , GU12 4SJ, United KingdomThis confirms the test that practical classics did about 10 years ago (when PC was still an OK magazine) - they tested various "rust converters" anti rust paints, hammerite and zinc primer. If you want to remove all the rust and so on now, but not complete the restoration (paint and so on) right away, i would use something like Dinitrol ML (its basically oil/wd40) It keeps the area rust free and its pretty easy to remove after when you decide its time to finish the restoration (normal panel wipe take it off in 1 sec) Downside is, if you don´t get it all off (have small spot missed or something like that) don´t expect anything to adhere to it, not even the most stubborn paints are gonna like it.

Again, the hydrate 80 converts and forms a barrier, so things on top of that won't have any protecting properties. We were really surprised by the results of this rust converters test, not only because the two Jenolite products were so far apart in performance. The fluids here all have a similar appearance, but some are clearly better than others, and cheaper too.

Powerful Rust Conversion & Protection.

But it didn’t last. By the end of our month the coating had almost completely disappeared from our unpainted metal and spots of rust were starting to break through to the other side too. And while it appears to be cheap, the bottle is tiny at just 90ml, making it seem poor value. Verdict