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View single post by jsoluna
 Posted: Tue Aug 28th, 2018 04:37 pm
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jsoluna



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For those interested in the electrolysis process:

I have two tanks, a 35 gal and a 10 gal.  They are non-conductive Rubbermaid tubs.  Cheap, easy to find.

Fill them with water and washing soda (sodium carbonate).  The mixture is about 1% washing soda to water.  This creates an electrolyte for conductivity.

Sacrificial metals (where the rust gets plated to) can be any kind of scrap steel you have around.  For the small tub I just used scrap.  For the large tub I bought a stick of iron pipe and cut it into four sections, attached to the tub with pipe straps.  I then ran a conductor to each pipe strap around the outside of the tub to connect them all together and give easy access for attaching the positive clamp.

The power source is an old laptop charger, converts 110ac to 19vdc/4.5 amps.  This had enough current and voltage to completely move the rust off the housing, but it took about 5 days.  I soldered in old jumper cable clamps to the ends of the adapter's output so I could easily attach my positive and negative feeds.

Negative clamps to workpiece.  Positive clamps to sacrificial metal (anodes).

Let 'er eat.  It did a much better job than I could have done by hand and was very gentle - didn't destroy any of the good metal below the rust.

It does flash rust quickly, so pressure washing and applying a rust inhibitor is recommended if you don't want to it flash rust overnight.  Gotta plan for that step.