The smell of WD-40 drives me insane, is there any other way to de-rust a bridge?

[thez0r]

or does the wd-40 smell go away after time?

[Nightbat]

Throw it in coca cola

[84sups]

Lol there's always PB blaster.......that smells WAY worse. It'll dissipate over time. Coca cola doesn't really work.....been there.....did more harm than good.

[Codex]

Do a google search for removing rust by making a paste with baking soda and water. There should be some info there to help you out.

[Newc]

Wear a mask and seal the bowl/jar/container.

[DonP]

I thought it smells good?

[GuerillaPete]

Smells like aftershave for the Tin-Man.

[ralph]

Use steel wool, you will have to pull the whole trem apart though

[rjohnstone]

The smell should go away pretty quick once you have wiped the trem down.
The only time you should leave WD-40 on there is if you're storing it for a long period of time.
Q-Tips work great for those hard to clean spots in the saddles.

[ginsambo]

Yeah Phosphoric acid (Cola) is good, brick cleaner (Hydrocholoric acid) or a metal prep rust eater etcher type thing, rubber gloves and a suede wire brush. WD's are wax/oil based and attract dirt and as said are meant only to protect for storage.

Use a proper oil on it.

[Rsmacker]

The makers of WD40 do some fucking great products now, confusingly all called WD40. The spray-on degreaser is fantastic, doesn't smell like the original WD and doesn't burn your nostrils out for a week after you use it. (OK, so I'm talking about motorbike engine here, but you get the drift.)

The best way to clean up any really cruddy and rusty stuff is to use one of those ultrasonic jewellery cleaners, it'll come up like new, with pretty much zero effort by you, even cleaning places you won't get to with your Mrs' toothbrush.

[straycat]

Brake Free is a good product it cleans off the rust with some scrubbing and protects the metal from further rust by coating it.
The smell goes away quickly.
You can find it in the sporting goods/ gun dept at a Wal Mart.
Made for semi auto and machine guns. Fantastic on guitar bridges and gets all the rust off.

[LaoWai]

Ha! I use break free on my AR15, never thought about using it on my guitars ; ) it leaves a slight Teflon coating on the metal...

[Devotee]

I use WD40 as deoderant, what's the problem?

[silar]

The makers of WD40 do some fucking great products now, confusingly all called WD40. The spray-on degreaser is fantastic, doesn't smell like the original WD and doesn't burn your nostrils out for a week after you use it. (OK, so I'm talking about motorbike engine here, but you get the drift.)

The best way to clean up any really cruddy and rusty stuff is to use one of those ultrasonic jewellery cleaners, it'll come up like new, with pretty much zero effort by you, even cleaning places you won't get to with your Mrs' toothbrush.

I second the Ultrasonic cleaner. Actually Harbor Freight carries a pretty good one that has a heater and always gets good reviews for around $80. It's easy to find a 20% off coupon so it comes out to around $64 for something that you can use not just for guitar equipment, but clean your carbs in too!