Please help! Anyone any ideas?

[wheretodothis]

Really hoping someone can help me with this

it’s a gift for DD after the loss of a much loved horse. We have a collection of his horseshoes and we would like to get one cleaned and sprayed. We managed to get a nice gold glitter spray in B&Q for metal however cleaning the horseshoe is an absolute struggle. We’ve had it in Coca Cola, boiling water with soapy liquid and all sorts of other metal cleaners. We’ve used Brillo pads to scrub the top layers of crust. There’s still so much rust/dirt on it and it’s really uneven and bumpy.

does anyone know anywhere that would properly clean something like this and possibly smooth it out? There’s always going to be bumps and scratches on it, that’s part of it, but it’s a big raggedy on the surface and is there anywhere that could stick it on a metal sander (or whatever it’s called!) and smooth it or at least get the top layer of stuff off it?

TIA.

You could try a shot blaster; I got some garden metal bits cleaned up beautifully.

Pressure washer? Sugar scrub?

Wd40?

dremel abrasive buffs or similar for a standard drill

Understand getting the dirt off, but might she not appreciate it having the bumps and scratches that were part of him wearing them? Otherwise it's a bit like you're getting rid of him and might as well have got a new horseshoe.

Just spray it as it is. More real and personal. Otherwise you might as well get any old new shiny horseshoe.

Just give up and paint it with gold Hammerite paint. You don’t even need to get the rust or dirt off, unless it’s loose: you just paint over it. It’s fabulous stuff.

Apologies I should have said- she knows and is fine with it. There will always be bumps and scratches and that’s fine, that’s part of him, but it’s the stuff caked onto the horseshoe that’s the problem- it’s rust and dirt and is completely solid and she wanted to get it off to have the actual horseshoe underneath (with all the scratches on that)

Try using Bar Keeper’s Friend, it’s worked wonders on everything I’ve used it on.

You can get rust dissolving products from Halfords. Or primer paint that can go straight onto rust prior to using the gold spray paint in B&Q etc
In terms of cleaning dirt off it, I would probably screw it onto a big bit of wood or something in the garden to keep it still, and then go at it with a screwdriver/knife/wire brush, depending on what the dirt is.