How to make corten steel rust?

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

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

Corten steel has become popular for its distinctive appearance and ability to withstand the elements without the need for painting or treatment. But how do you achieve that rusty patina quickly without compromising the long-term integrity of the steel? The answer may lie in an innovative organic solution: Aquigarden rust accelerator .

✨ Discover now : Browse our exceptional collection of Corten steel products and transform your outdoor space into a true corner of paradise. Discover our Corten products .

How to make corten steel rust?

First of all, it is useful to recall what corten steel is, and all the properties that characterize it. It is not just a fashionable material that we come across in many gardens, corten steel is a carbon-based steel.

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

Subsequently, its use became more widespread 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 highlighted by many professional architects and landscapers , corten steel is a material that has become essential in 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 the structural resistance of traditional steels?

Benefits of Corten Steel in Your Garden

It is especially recognized for its natural oxidation, which allows it to have very high resistance to all types of weather and also to any corrosion, its lack of maintenance requirements for its owner, and finally a design with a unique and timeless rusty effect.

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

✨ Discover now : Browse our exceptional collection of Corten steel products and transform your outdoor space into a true corner of paradise. Discover our Corten products .

Be careful to respect the rules

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

Naturally, corten steel can take up to several long months to reach its optimal state of corrosion, and therefore its most beautiful appearance.
Speeding up this process therefore has above all an aesthetic advantage for you and for the use you plan to make of it.

So it is the patina of the corten steel that we will help you improve, its coloring, its rendering. In completely natural conditions, the patina of the corten steel will evolve over the rainy days and dry periods, which explains why its natural corrosion takes a certain amount of time.

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

And again here, rinse thoroughly with clean water, let dry, then repeat the operation as many times as necessary. To go further, you will also find chemical products on the market that considerably accelerate this process. These are industrial chemicals, such as rust accelerators. Be careful not to damage the corten steel, always seek the advice of a specialist.

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

However, we would like to point out that these purely chemical methods are not without risks. They pose a certain risk 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.

However, there are several commercially available solutions that claim to speed up this process. Caution is advised, as some of these solutions can cause long-term damage to the steel. Here are some solutions:

Although Corten steel is designed to rust naturally, this process can take time, often between 4-5 months, depending on weather conditions. For many designers, architects, and homeowners, this wait can be frustrating, especially since the rusty patina is often desired for the final design.

Aquigarden: The biological solution to accelerate rust

A biological rust accelerator that respects the integrity of Corten steel, it is entirely possible and we work in partnership with the factory that produces our Corten furniture. Unlike other solutions that may contain aggressive chemicals, the Aquigarden accelerator is designed specifically for accelerated and controlled oxidation.

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

Things to remember before using products to rust corten

It will also be useful for you to pay attention to natural rust water that can result either from the corrosion accelerating chemicals used or from other more natural methods but also based on liquid solution. These flows could damage your stones, tiles, adjacent structures in an almost irreversible way.

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

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

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

• otherwise spray regularly with white vinegar or lemon, rinse thoroughly with clean water, leave to dry, and again repeat the operation as often as necessary,

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

• In all cases, be sure to wear protective gloves,
• do not inhale sprayed chemicals,

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

By applying our advice, you will be able to obtain ideal corrosion in the space of one or two weeks maximum, or even just a few hours using the most sophisticated chemical methods on this subject, compared to 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 apply to make your structures designed in corten steel rust more quickly, and on the precautions to take.

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

So don't hesitate to consult our other sections concerning corten steel containers, in particular on the different models that we offer, without forgetting our detailed guide on how to correctly and durably install corten steel borders.