Cleaning this….

[Jack Frederick]

I picked this up today at an old homes basement. It is a Meyer’s Loader. I am not sure what I will use if for but must say I am intrigued by it. I’ve seen plenty of rust but have never tried to detail/restore anything like this. What would you use product wise/process etc to deal with this messy, but very cool piece. Oh, and in addition to that I pick up a pair of Sard 7x50 USN Mark 21 Marine Binocs. WWII vintage. They too are going to need some attention. There is a bit of haze on the rt side but they are original and so very cool.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Try submerging it in a bath of cola.

[Dwayne Watt]

That appears to be part of an old mechanism for loading loose hay into the hay mow of a barn.
The home remedy for removing rust from cast iron is vinegar (similar to Ken's soda recommendation). The acid removes the rust and will eat into the base iron as well if left too long. A commercial remedy is Evapo-Rust. It is not supposed to be reactive with the base metal, only the oxides. I have used naval jelly on rusted tools to remove rust as well.

[Kev Williams]

Phosphoric acid, it's what's in Coke, it works but get some good stuff! I use this from Home Depot:
473725
-it's 20% acid, you can use it full strength, but 50/50 mixed with water will work too.
They also sell a 'chemical resistant' spray bottle, it has no problem spraying this stuff--

Go to Harbor Freight and get a set or three of these brushes-
473726
While you're at HF, and assuming you have an air compressor, get one of these
473727
--and while I can't find it on their website, they sell 2lb bottles of sand,
this is mine--
473728

Acid on, brush where needed, rinse with water, repeat, when the rust is gone to suit you, the air eraser will slowly, but magically, make it look like new :)

[Dave Fritz]

I saw one of those in our recycling bin but when I looked closer it was broken. I probably should still have pulled it out.

[Mitch schiffer]

I would use evaporust. It works well, its not harmful to touch or breathe, and it is reusable.

[Rich Engelhardt]

I picked this up today at an old homes basement. It is a Meyer’s Loader. I am not sure what I will use if for but must say I am intrigued by it.Google steampunk.
You'll find a bunch of ideas.

Personally - I'd soak it in oil for however long - then wash the oil off with mineral spirits - to see where it's at rust-wise - before using anything like sand or acid that will destroy the patina.

You can look up which model you have here:
https://haytrolleyheaven.com/manufacturer/f-e-myers-bro/

FWIW - they can be somewhat valuable - like a few hundred dollars - to someone that collects old farm equipment.
Sandblast or acid clean it and you remove any collector value - so - please, take that into account.

[Bill Dufour]

EDTA is the cheap version of evaporust. Submerge completely or a high tide line will be etched into the rust. use a plastic storage tote, garbage can or kiddy wading pool.
EDTA is safe enough to eat, some people do.
Bill D

[Roger Feeley]

+1 on the soda. I think Mountain Dew has a lot of phosphoric acid. If used it to take the zinc off of carriage bolts. I wanted something that didn’t look like a carriage bolt from Home Depot. So I removed the plating and used a metal lathe to turn the head flat and added a chamfer. Then I used a propane torch to get a nice brown color and dipped the head in some varnish. To insure that there would be no drips, I have a flat plate of plywood that I can mount on the wood lathe. I screwed the bolts into holes in the plate and turned on the lathe at about 5rpm. After a couple of hours the varnish had set enough that I could turn off the lathe.

[Jack Frederick]

Thank you all for the suggestions. Should be a fun project.

[Frederick Skelly]

That's pretty neat Jack. Agree with Rich and Dwayne - I googled "meyers unloader hay trolley", and yours looks like what came up on images. The asking prices that came up were all over the map, but I saw one at $180 and another for $360.

I'd try a brass brush, followed by evaporust if it was mine. Hope you'll post pics after you clean it up.
Fred

[Jim Allen]

+1 for Evapo-Rust

[Lon Crosby]

A trolley it is. Ran on a track hung from the peak of a barn roof running the length of the barn. Have a few to remind me what hard work really is.

[Michael Weber]

I just watched a YouTube video of various rust removal solutions. Evaporust, another commercial product I don’t recall, coke and vinegar. I was a well performed test. In short don’t waste your time with anything other than Evaporust. Harbor freight sells it among many others.

[Jack Frederick]

It is an H-240 model. I spent a little time on it yesterday just scraping off a century of crap. It is in pretty good shape overall. I think I will hit it with a power washer to get rid of the dirt in the nooks and crannies. Original color is silver. I thought there would be bolts on the pulleys, but it is 1/2” rivets, so no disassembly possible and it will take quite a lot of Evaporust to submerge. On YT I saw a fellow turn these into light fixtures. With the unit I also picked up a large coil of good condition 1” and 1.5” rope. I have an access hole in my ceiling and with the attic trusses I have light storage. I may rig this guy up to reduce the strain of lifting/lowering. I’ve long since forgotten the ratio of weight reduction with pulleys

[Tom M King]

I like them best painted, with the letters highlighted, regardless of what it does to the resale value. I'd pressure wash it, and submerge it in Evapo-Rust for a day. There is another brand that's the same thing, but I forget the name. Autozone sells one, and Advance Auto the other.

You can drape a piece of 6 mil plastic in a bin, set the piece in, and take up space under the plastic with blocks of wood, or bricks to lessen the amount of Evapo-Rust it takes to submerge it.

When you first put it in the solution, it won't look like it's doing anything for a good while, but then it will start working. The solution is reusable several times, so pour it slowly back in the jugs, leaving the junk in the bottom of the bin.

[Bill Dufour]

EDTA or name brand evaporust. Two ways to save product. Put item in sealed plastic bag along with magic liquid. Then put it to float in a big tub, barrel etc of water. You will probably have to put item in water filled tub before adding the magic liquid. Another method is to put item in the tub and pack it with plastic bottles and baggies filled with tap water to take up space before adding the magic juice. I suppose clean sand or gravel would work. I would not use concrete or limestone, marble etc.
Bill D

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I remember seeing my grandfather and uncles using this type of device to move loose hay into the hayloft in their barn on the family farm in southern Indiana when I was a young child.

[Tom Bender]

So the way to rig this is interesting. The line runs from the winch (you may be the winch) over a pulley on the near end of the beam, over the near pulley on the trolley, down thru the block with the hook, up to the trolley and over the far pulley, then to an anchor point at the far end of the beam. That results in minimal force trying to move the trolley. The trolley is moved along the beam by pushing the load. Mechanical advantage is 2. To lift a 100 pound load you need 50 pounds of pull on the line.

[Rich Engelhardt]

So the way to rig this is interesting. The line runs from the winch (you may be the winch) over a pulley on the near end of the beam, over the near pulley on the trolley, down thru the block with the hook, up to the trolley and over the far pulley, then to an anchor point at the far end of the beam. That results in minimal force trying to move the trolley. The trolley is moved along the beam by pushing the load. Mechanical advantage is 2. To lift a 100 pound load you need 50 pounds of pull on the line.That could be one way.
This postcard looks like the load is lifted and moved by one operation.
It looks a lot like as the operator pulls the rope, the lower pulley is lifting and as the load lifts, the way the rope is attached to the wall, it pulls the trolley towards the wall.

[Lee Schierer]

Here's a restoration of a hay loader (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rp-3nNFf4uA) similar to yours.

[William Fretwell]

If you can get some, Oxalic acid removes the rust very well without affecting the metal. It neutralizes the rust in the pores of the metal. Four heaped tablespoons in warm water, leave a few hours. Not expensive. See if your hardware store or pharmacy can get some for you. It is poisonous if consumed so there may be rules to follow.

Abrading with wire brushes, sand blasting, power washing etc will give a good result.

[Ronald Blue]

No advice on the restoration but when I was a toddler that's how hay was put in the hay mow. However it was square bales at that time. I am thinking it grabbed 4? at a time off the wagon but I'll ask my brother. The track extended outside the barn and the old barn had what I would call a bird beak on one end. Roof extended past the end wall 3 or 4 feet. A tractor was used rather than horses to run it. That's as much as I remember about that part of it.

The real memory is I got the idea if I grabbed the rope I could stop the tractor. The rope on the opposite end ran down the send of the barn to a pulley and then to the tractor. I grabbed that rope and of course my hand was drawn into the pulley. My brother stopped when I started screaming. There was no hay on the forks at that time. It took lots of skin off my 2 or 3 year old toddlers hands but nothing was broken fortunately. This would have been 1959 or 1960.