My first home test of Electrolysis

[Alkanira]

Hello! This is my first post and im new to the forum, but not new to metal detecting, and after washing and brushing stuff for hours on end i started reading about electrolysis, and as i work within Electronics, getting an old Analog power supply was no problem. Tried some new digital ones and they just didnt understand what was going on

I only had small items to try out at first, so i made it out of a 10L Bucket and wired some steel bars in there. And it works wonders, even this moddest blue bucket sitting in my garage.

Note, this is my test setup on how to do this, so dont judge to hard






Before:




After:
i lost some of the head, it was too far gone


(Dont mind the cat in the shower)


Some old bullet cartridge

Before And After:

 

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[rick67]

All I use is a old cell phone charger, old utensils to sacrifice, tablespoon of salt per gallon of water, and a bucket similar to yours.
Haven't seen any other way.

 

[Honeyman]

Boy, I want to try this! A few questions. Is the object to be cleaned connected to the positive or negative terminal?
Also, here's a pic of the commercial (entry level) rectifier I use for small silver plating jobs in my musical instrument repair business. Is it an acceptable power source, and what settings should I use for cleaning my finds?

 

[RustyGold]

Wow I haven't seen one of those rectifiers for years. I used one when I was plating gold over nickel!

I use a small Radio Shack wall charger. Here's a picture!



I split the wire on the charger in two and soldered alligator clips to each end. Red clip positive - Black clip negative.



Attach item to be cleaned to the negative terminal in this setup.

I attach the red clip to a carbon rod i purchased from amazon as you can see in the picture.

The solution I use is a mixture of water and Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda.

It works very well at cleaning coins but be careful, there is a point where you can ruin a coin you should have preserved in it's natural found state.

Best of luck

 

[Alkanira]

@ Honeyman

I belive it will work perfectly. The Negative terminal will REMOVE rust, all the positive terminals will "Suck" the rust of the item in cleaning, and all the positive terminals will get very very rusty, as negative get cleaned!

Reverse the prosess and the thing you want to clean is the thing that rusts! I use about 24 Volts off it, and about 3 amps of power. Leave it over night, and TADA, clean and nice!
MSg if any questions, im happy to help

 

[Higgy]

I'll add a couple of my thoughts, if'n I may.

I used to be a custom knifemaker. I made folders mostly, and used a lot of titanium, which almost always looked better if it was anodized. Its pretty much the same setup as electrolysis, but the big difference is the solution and the requirement of variable DC voltage.

The best electrolyte that most of my fellow knifemakers and I used was a solution of TSP (trisodium phosphate) and distilled water. TSP is a heavy-duty detergent, and can be found in hardware stores mostly. This solution is great because it is non-corrosive, unlike salts.

 

[Honeyman]

Success!!!
On a recent trip to the Outer Banks I found a 10 inch spike with some heavy encrustation. So I mixed up a batch of baking soda, distilled water, and Dawn. I purposely only put 1/2 of the spike in the solution so I could see if it worked. Boy, did it work!
I let it cook at 8 volts / 1/4 amp for 4 hours. Here's a picture.
One question, when doing something valuable (old coin, jewelry, etc.) how do you know when to stop before you start eating away the good stuff?
Thanks for all the advice guys!