How to make corten steel rust?

How to make corten steel rust? How to accelerate the corrosion of corten? You have just purchased a corten steel planter or another type of corten products for your garden.

This corten steel has been widely used for several years in Europe. It has a natural resistance to corrosion. At Foudebassin, we usually deliver it to you unrusted. However, some of our products can be delivered rusty to avoid waiting several months.

How to rust corten steel?

First of all, it is useful to remember what corten steel is, and all the properties characterizing it. It's not just a fashionable material that you come across in many gardens, corten steel is a carbon-based steel.

Originally, it was mainly exploited and known in the worlds of construction, construction (economic sector of building and public works), architecture. Gradually, it appeared in our gardens .

Subsequently, its use was democratized in the worlds of gardening and outdoor decoration, this material no longer belonging only to professionals, but also to any individual wishing to stylize their outdoor living space.

Highly recommended and put forward by many architects and professional landscapers , corten steel is a material that has become essential in terms of outdoor furniture and gardening. We offer a multitude of corten steel garden items such as corten fountains, corten planters , water blades, ...

Its advantages are numerous and unique compared to other materials on the market. Did you know that corten steel has double structural strength compared to traditional steels

Benefits of corten steel in your garden

It is especially recognized for its natural oxidation allowing it to have a very high resistance to any category of bad weather and also to any corrosion, its absence of the need for maintenance for its owner, and finally a design with a rusty effect. unique and timeless.

However, it is essential to point out that in order to be able to fully benefit from its oxidation and resistance properties, it will be useful for you to know how to make corten steel rust.

Be careful to follow the rules

The oxidation of corten steel can be accelerated in many ways, more or less rapid and more or less gentle or aggressive for the environment. Our present guide has been designed to help you on this subject, to guide you, and to give you advice on the things to do as well as on the things to avoid. This is to speed up a process which is already natural to corten steel: its corrosion.

Naturally, corten steel can take up to several long months before reaching its optimal state of corrosion, and therefore its best finish.
Accelerating this process therefore has above all an aesthetic advantage for you and for the use you plan to make of it.

It is therefore the patina of the corten steel that we are going to help you improve, its coloring, its rendering. Under completely natural conditions, the patina of corten steel will evolve over rainy days and dry periods, which explains why its natural corrosion takes some time.

In order to simulate and optimize these conditions, we therefore recommend that you regularly spray salt water on your elements designed in corten steel, and then let them dry. Repeat the process again and again until you get the desired result.

And again here, rinse thoroughly with clear water, let dry, then repeat the operation as much as necessary. To go further, you will also find chemicals on the market that considerably speed up this process. These are industrial chemicals, of the rust accelerator type. Be careful not to degrade the corten steel, always seek the advice of a specialist.

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Their single application at once allows your corten steel to rust to its optimum finish in the space of a few hours or even just one hour, a record saving of time and energy for you.

However, we would like to point out that these purely chemical methods are not without risks. They constitute a certain danger of degradation for the material itself in the long term, and are extremely harmful from an environmental point of view.

It is therefore essential that when using them, you apply a set of safety measures, both for your own health and to preserve your environment and the solidity of your corten steel support.

Whichever method you wish to choose, we recommend various safety measures, such as wearing suitable quality protective gloves, and a safe, outdoor and well-ventilated spraying area.

What to remember before using products to rust corten

It will also be useful for you to be aware of natural rust water which may arise either from the corrosion accelerating chemicals used or from other more natural but also liquid solution based methods. These flows could almost irreversibly damage your stones, tiles, adjacent structures.

To summarize the various tips that we are sending you in order to rust faster your elements designed in corten steel, you will need:

• expose the corten steel to natural rain as much as possible, especially during the wet period of the year, ideally with an alternation between wet and dry periods,

• regularly spray with salt water, let dry, and renew as necessary,

• if not, regularly spray white vinegar or even lemon, rinse with plenty of clear water, let dry, and here again repeat the operation as much as necessary,

• select and apply an industrial chemical solution from the category of rust accelerators, or corrosion,

• in any case, be sure to wear protective gloves,
• do not inhale the sprayed chemicals,

• protect your surfaces such as tiles, natural stones and others from any stains or spills.

Thanks to the application of our advice, you will be able to obtain ideal corrosion in the space of one or two weeks maximum, or even only a few hours through the most elaborate chemical methods on this subject, against long months. with a purely natural process.

Our company is particularly committed to providing you with the best possible advice, both on the methods to be applied to achieve rust faster on your structures designed in corten steel, and on the precautions to take.

In the category of corten steel elements, we offer a wide range of corten steel containers, in all sizes and shapes.

Do not hesitate to consult our other sections concerning corten steel planters, in particular on the different models that we offer, without forgetting our detailed guide on how to correctly and durably install corten steel borders.