Bahama finds

[Hawkins]

Hi Gator, I think I mentioned to Red that I wanted to use a stainless steel plate, would that work well? Another question is. . . Which items gets the positive, I think I saw on youtube that the positive gets the steel and the negative gets the anchor?
Is that wrong or is it opposite? By the way thanks for posting gator, I have been impressed with your posts and I think I'm in your area. I recently purchased a house in Vero Beach, for the purpose of exploring the 1715 beaches and possibly lease from brent.
I might have a couple investors and patient money.

 

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[Red_desert]

Thanks Gatorboy! Hawkins, if you hook up the negative and positive current correctly, there should be something bubbling or happening to the encrustation. As for time to get it cleaned up, be patient until finished and add fresh salt water as needed. Coins before finished in electrolysis, may have small bits of encrustation left which seems to be slow in removing. I came up with a quick way of dealing with this problem.

When in Arizona, one of the prospecting shops told me how to clean small gold nuggets. You put a mixture of half white vinegar and water in a jar to soak. But soaking isn't enough they told me. Then a spoon of ordinary table salt grains would be added for shaking up or swirling in the jar. By the time your salt gets dissolved the small nugget is bright shining clean. Salt itself doesn't clean a nugget, it is the shaking or swirling process that does it. Some people tried this with nuggets and didn't swirl it after adding salt (nugget wasn't cleaning).

 

[Hawkins]

Thanks Red, now all I gotta do is find that load of gold out in front of my house! lol I searched this winter but only found silver, I'll show you a pic and also something interesting, not sure what it is. http://tnet.forumfoundry.com/forums/images/smilies/icon_scratch.gif Could be German? could be Knights Templar? Let me know, anyone.

 

[GatorBoy]

Thanks y'all.. if you found a metal object in saltwater the idea is to leech out the salt from the object.
Electrolysis plays a major part in removing the salt as well as cleaning.
If nothing else can be done to an object simply putting it in fresh water that is changed often should be the first thing done with it.
Salt is destructive... removing as much of it as possible is extremely important otherwise what seems like a stable object will destroy itself from the inside out leaving you with a crumbled pile of debris before you know it.
This might sound silly but if the object will fit I use a toilet tank often it works wonderfully in changing the water without being a hassle just put it in and forget about it.
The negative lead always goes on the artifact the positive on the anode.
I use sodium bicarbonate as my electrolyte in the electrolysis solution.
Approximately one tablespoon per gallon.
And yes... you do live near me.
I was just at Rio Mar yesterday... I hit a great sounding target that I simply could not retrieve... I was a good 12-14 inches down and getting a slamming steady mid tone.. The hole kept filling in and the tide was coming up around me I can't wait to get back to that spot after some sand has been removed..
Oh by the way I didn't see anything on that link just a :-) scratching his head

 

[Hawkins]

Did the pictures of the bracelet and seal show up? Just wandering as I'm new to posting this stuff. The bracelet was found just a little south of Rio Mar. I don't think its 1715 material, but I think the stones could be amber? The seal was found where they blew up those mines, that is why I'm thinking it could be german?

 

[GatorBoy]

Yeah I see the modern bracelet and the other object.
It's definitely interesting.
There was a lot of World War 2 ordnance on that section of coastline but it had nothing to do with Germans it was the US using the shoreline and adjacent waters for training

 

[Red_desert]

I didn't get to finish my post about the gold nugget cleaning. They use salt to swirl it in the jar after soaking in white vinegar/water solution. I don't like salt for it, but rather fine silica which doesn't dissolve. The silica I have was left over supply from the old days, when they put a thin coat of plaster on walls of houses. The fine silica got mixed with the plaster.

I took encrusted coins (which turned out to be zinc pennies) and a small dug gold jewelry pice that came from Arizona desert, so it needed a small amount of cleaning. In a coffee jar about 1 1/4" fine silica on the bottom, put the encrusted coins along with the small gold piece.

Once each day would swirl the bottom contents around some, but not too much. I think it was about the 3-4 day took the stuff out to look at. Not a trace of encrustation on the zinc cents, but they dissolve in acid the spots where the copper plating had worn off.

The gold piece was one of those clip ends like from solid gold tie tacks. The tie tack clip end, inside parts were all cleaned out and you could use it again. Gold comes out beautiful clean this method, but if fine silica is hard to find, white beach sand contains quartz grains (which is a form of silica). Beach sand could be screened to remove bits of seashell and other junk. Then the sand purified from salt and anything (the mineral sediments that helped make the concretion you see on artifacts). You do this by soaking the sand in the same mixture of white vinegar and water. Pour off the liquid, now use water to rinse your sand.

I had used salt for cleaning inland dug coins by electrolysis, that is how it was shown is some older treasure hunting articles. Since these are salt water artifacts, baking soda will eliminated the salt. But I think the electrolysis probably destroys or chemically changes salt in the process.

 

[Hawkins]

Thanks red, for the silica info, is that like an abrasive or something for the coins? And thanks for all the information, this website is great and has alot of guys that have the same interests, hopefully one day I'll find a banner piece.

Yea Gator. . .I heard that was for training and they had those big iron cross beams on the beach, probably those rusty coins I've been picking up.
But I heard alot of stories that German soldiers all along the coast, tried to land on the beaches, they were caught in New York.
In the summer I live in Dewey Beach, Delaware. (coin Beach) I have buckets full of brass exploded ordinance and 50 mm shells and bullets.
But I always remembered the stories of the 2 Germans that landed at the Indian River Inlet in DE.
My imagination starts running when I found that "surfer's Cross", the knights templar used that insignia also.
Someone said it might be used as a wax seal stamp.

Good luck on that find at Rio Mar, I know how frustrating it can be when the wet sand keeps collapsing on the dig.

 

[Red_desert]

"Thanks red, for the silica info, is that like an abrasive or something for the coins?"

Yes, that was the purpose, just a little abrasive action. The prospecting shop in AZ recommended a teaspoon of salt, because it would dissolve before a guy could damage the gold nugget by swirling it too much. Fine silica has grains not any larger than table salt. The white grains of beach sand are probably mostly quartz which is a type of silica, so it should be about the same as for use. Black grains in sand are iron minerals such as magnatite or hematite, you find that on beaches were placer gold is washed to sea (like Alaska or West Coast).

 

[Red_desert]

We ought to get this condensed into simple steps

1. Use sodium bicarbonate as your electrolyte in the electrolysis solution (Approximately one tablespoon per gallon).
2. The negative lead always goes on the artifact the positive on the anode.
3. Very important that the anode needs to be a more noble metal than the artifact being treated.

Ok, can anyone add to this, make into instructions?

 

[GatorBoy]

Never let the artifact touch the anode while charged..also don't turn off power while both leads are attached then turn it back on

 

[Red_desert]

Never let the artifact touch the anode while charged..also don't turn off power while both leads are attached then turn it back on

Did you mean don't turn on the power with both leads attached?

 

[GatorBoy]

No.. I meant..if your actively cleaning an object..then for whatever reason turn off the power while both leads are attached ..then turn it back on you can reverse polarity and actually electroplate the artifacts with whatever metal is in the water or on the anode

 

[Red_desert]

No, I wouldn't want to electroplate an artifact. What about guilded artifacts, can you damage them by electrolysis cleaning?

 

[GatorBoy]

Your line of thinking is absolutely correct and yes you would detach any gilding that was there completely...most of the time that stuff is so fragile you don't even want to rub it with your finger.
It's basically powder coating and you would reverse the process used to adhere it to begin with.... with what's accurately described as reverse electrolysis

 

[GatorBoy]

It's definitely a handy tool to have in your arsenal but there's definitely times it's not the best answer to the particular artifact problem.. A lot of time you hear horror stories about electrolysis gone bad and it's usually because mistakes were made or it was used when it really shouldn't have been.. It doesn't discriminate and it separates everything down to bare metal basically sometimes the detail of the object goes with it

 

[Red_desert]

That's what I thought, there was a guilded artifact posted once in the board.....I'm thinking it might have been part of a gun with ornate design. Would be hard to figure out what could be guilded, I suppose those things probably be on the rare side of the finds list.

 

[GatorBoy]

A lot of things were gilded it was an early form of plating and it took less precious metal than plating... a lot of buttons were gilded.. I've even dug up everyday items like belt buckles and change purse tops that were gilded

 

[Red_desert]

I used the acidic cleaning for gold items (such as tie pin end clips) that had interior components with a mineral cemented inside, it worked good to free it. Would that be a safe method on guilded artifacts?

 

[Professor of Engineering]

Very interesting read!