mcostello - the difficult part about exposures is that everyone is different. We have all heard the stories of someone who smoked from the age of 5, lived into their 90s and probably got run over by a bus.
You could be one of the hardy souls who have a higher tolerance of it.
Everything to do with exposures tends to follow the bell curve probability. I will attach a graphic. In short, the majority of people tend to fall into a certain range, which tapers off at each end to the exceptions: the ones who have almost zero tolerance and the ones who seem almost immune.
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http://www.statisticshowto.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/standard-normal-distribution.jpg>
As you can see, -2 to 2 standard deviations covers most people.
I was involved many years ago with having to isolate and dispose of an industrial product. I had been warned it was dangerous but could not find out anything about it. When I questioned the company concerned they responded with words to this effect "25% of the people exposed to it occupationally it would kill, the other 75% seemed unaffected, but there was no medical test that could identify which group people were in, so it was banned".
This is also the reason so many promising medicines that we hear about on the news never get to be sold.
However, I have really taken this off topic.
Getting back on topic, if you have patience, a molasses and water tub is a very good way to de-rust steel BUT only mild steel. It will ruin spring steel, alloy etc. The purer the water the better the result. Being able to cover the container is also preferable, the smell is pretty impressive. I can't tolerate the stuff on my skin, gives me migraine headaches!
They always used to say that Phosphoric Acid was the least harsh of the acids for cleaning steel and that it left an anti-rust phosphate coating on the
steel when rinsed off gently.