Thread: electrolytic rust removal.

Do a search...there are a couple of really good step by step posts with pics.

Tools

I've searched Google, i found a couple of sites with some really good info. but i also wanted to see what you guys on hear had to say about it.

thanks

Originally Posted by newbie-doug

I've searched Google, i found a couple of sites with some really good info. but i also wanted to see what you guys on hear had to say about it.

thanks

Try Electrolysis in the search on this site

woodcutta

I have doen quite a bit of it and find it a very successful way of dealing with rust - I use a bog-standard car battery charger and some old stainless steel knives and forks for the anode. This means that it takes a while, but my reading of the literature suggested that it was when you use a lot of current and a big anode to speed thisngs along that you might go too far and damage the tool.
So slow and steady is my suggestion.

Have a look HERE

I've used this process for all my hand planes with great success.

The basics are,
1x 12 or 6 volt battery charger.
supermarket 'lectric salt' or 'washing soda'
disolve 1 teaspoon of lectric salts per pint of water. More is OK- but won't improve anything.
mild steel sacrificial anodes (star picket, or any other scrap)

- put solution in a big plastic tub, bucket, or as someone I know does, wheely bin.
- put sacrifical anode in down the side and attatch ABOVE the water your positive- red- aligator clip from your charger. The anode cannot touch the object to be de-rusted. If you wanto be real picky then you will put anodes all around the edges/corners, as the electrolytic de-rusting happens in varying strengths by line of sight to the proximity of the anode (the closer and facing to the anode, the quicker it will de-rust).
Then get your negative- black- aligator clip and attatch it to a brushed or sanded clean peice of the metal you wish to de-rust.
The negative wire can go into the water and will never corrode, while if you let your positive wire touch the water it will melt away to nothing.

IMO, and in the opionion of others I have talked to about it- much more experience than me,
DO NOT USE stainless steel as your sacrificial anode.
The chemistry is uncertain at the moment, but by using stainless it is likely that one gets chromium in solution, not a good thing to be dipping your hand into.
The advantage of a stainless sacrificial anode is that it takes for ever to rust up, whereas a mild steel one will gunk up reasonably quickly.
I have read it said that you need to regularly take out and scrub down your mild steel anode, to get off the rust- and while this will give you a temporary acceleration of the process, it is not necessary. The current finds its way through the outer scale-rust and continues to work no mater how gunked up it gets- though it does slow down.
The advantage of mild steel is that you can just dip your hands in and have no health concerns.

other notes...
don't worry about the brown soup, apparantly the only reason to change the water is for appearance sake.
Degrease your objects before you de-rust them, Personally I cook mine in a baking tray of hot water and detergent on the stove top for a while.
Do it outside or in a well ventilated area, as it does generate some gasses, not so good for your health.

Lastly, have fun.
As far as i know, it is near impossible to damage the object you are de-rusting. It can make things a little more brittle temporarily (hydrogenated I thing ) which if a problem will be solved by applying heat, or time...

anyway,
ask more questions if you want.
P.S.
I started in a big bucket, and have moved up to very large black tub. For saw blades, you will be needing something rather large sized- mine just fits a large handsaw in. A tool restorer I have talked to about it does massive big saws in wheely bins, and has two or three chargers going full time.
I generally have two chargers going most of the time...

Hans.

Crossed posts, MajorPanic,

I would just say again, because most of the current literature (such as majorpanics link) is suggesting to do the opposite-
it is much safer to avoid stainless steel at the moment.
Mild steel works fine. Slower, but fine, and with no possiblilty of toxic substances generated.


just found another article describing it,
http://www.htpaa.org.au/article-electro.php

I have been doing a lot of drill bits and small peices lately.
The easiest way I found to do this was to get a bag (5x) of double aligator clip wires (from dick smith). I melted off the plastic in the middle of all the wires, drilled a hole in my negative battery charger clip and looped all the wires through and attached with a small nut and bolt. Now that means I have 10 small aligator clips to attach things to, and the one bigger one of the battery charger.
Leave a pile of things, files, drill bits, plane blades, etc, all clipped together in over-night- and it is much easier and quicker than doing these things individually.

hey guys,

thanks heaps for all this info..ill give it a go this weekend. hope it all works fine.. thanks again.. very helpful.