Screwed up a storm door with Sodium Hydroxide

While stripping a deck, got some sodium hydroxide on a new storm door. Customer called me and said the gold kickplate on the bottom has white spots all over it, and the door itself (brown) has light and dark spots on it.

Now, I have not been out there to look at this thing yet, but do any of you have experience with this? How 'bout I spray some oxalic acid on it? I don't know. I'm really not in the mood to paint a storm door. He said he has tried various cleaners on it to no avail.




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Mike Hughes
Everclear
Souderton, PA

Mike,
The same thing happened to me a couple of weeks ago.Although I noticed it before I left.There were white spots on a white storm door,what I did was take a weak solution of sodium hydroxide and do the whole door.It matched up and it turned out that the sodium hydroxide actually cleaned the door.The door didn't look dirty but it was.It went from a dull white to a bright white and the customer never even knew.

Mike,

Sodium hydroxide and Oxalic acid will both damage polished metals. I have had sodium hydroxide completely dissolve aluminum and brass, while oxalic will remove the polished finish (or spot it depending on concentration and the ammount that was sprayed on the surface). If it indeed marred the finish on the kickplate you might try some polishing compound but I wouldn't expect it to come out fully. I learned the hard way as well.



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Greg Rentschler
GCR PowerClean
www.gcrpowerclean.com
NEW E-Mail address: GCR PowerClean@cs.com