Rust and My poor Co2 incubator - (Jun/03/2010 )

So my question is simple, how can i remove rust easily from my co2 incubator that i (try to...) grow human cells in??

I am tempted to just use some common rust remover (CLR??) but wanted to check here and see if some more experienced people had some sagely advice...

How did it get there??
a little background, i started in this lab as an intern - totally new to biology and found myself in this lab learning from the guy doing cell culture. That was five+ years ago, that guy left the lab a long time ago, and ever since then i've slowly realized that nearly everything this guy taught me was off the mark, to be kind about it.

So working "under" that guy for years, we used to clean out the incubator with BLEACH and wipe down with etoh. 3 applications of each. bleach-etoh, repeat Despite the fact that there is a sticker on the inner glass door clearly stating don't use chlorine...


now my incubator is rusty :/ And i'm having contamination issues as well and i know the rust is just a lovely home. How to remove/polish it away, anyone??

How extensive is the rust? If it is only a few small spots and the incubator is stainless steel, you can try polishing them off with a fine grade scouring powder (e.g. toothpaste. silver cleaner) or very fine sand paper (2000 grit).

bob1 on Jun 3 2010, 05:26 PM said:

yes its steel, its not covering the inner walls, but there are long stretches of rust along the cracks, and it looks as if the rust particles are coating the rest of the walls by the orange tint....

i'll pick up some cleaner and sand paper and give it a go thanks for the idea

just an update, and for reference, the CLR metal cleaner worked well for removing rust, but honestly there is no replacement for elbow grease. took a long time sanding every square cm of the shelving unit to remove all the heavy rusting and polish off the growing layer of oxide on the rest
i used 600 grit sandpaper because the store did not carry any higher... if i had time i would get 2000 and polish it nice but its shiny and smooth as is.

sandpaper dry works fine for all the smallish rusting spots