by shared previously, my house had been ransacked. Stripped of plumbing, electric, most metal of value. What was left, fortunately, were almost all of the doors. The french doors seperating the dining room from living room; upper half of dutch door separating kitchen from hall to bedrooms; and a swinging door separating the kitchen from dining room were taken. No big deal with two as the wall is coming down that housed them. The french door would have been nice, but no great loss given how small the area is (relatively speaking). Of the remaining doors only 2 are damaged beyond repair and I’ll need to replace.
With the rest, I plan to clean them up and reuse them. The biggest issue with them are the hinges. They are rusted, some so severe the doors don’t open or close, so I Googled how to remove rust from metal and found some great YouTube videos that recommended soaking the object in vinegar, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlcL_vHODkc&t=151s, or vinegar with salt added, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6x5BNcHyiiI&t=87s. I decided to give both a shot. Here are a couple of the hinges. Prior to putting them in the solution I used my Dremel tool to remove the surface rust.
These hinges are from the door to attic and they soaked for 3 days and as you can see from the video they now move freely. Upon taking them out of the vinegar and salt solution I did scrub each with a steel brush. I sprayed the hinges with WD40. The kitchen entry hinges are still soaking. They at least move now, but not as freely as in the video, so I put them back in the solution.
These door plates and knob were not as rusty as the hinges, so I opted to soak them in vinegar only and they only soaked approx 24 hours.
Cool to see what happened with the hinges.