Electrolysis blues

Chipk

Elite Member
Joined
Mar 18, 2013
Messages
3,314
Location
Jacksonville / Yulee Florida
Ok posted last week about trying electrolysis for the first time. Found a 1700s axe head that was heavily rusted and after watching numerous YouTube videos dove into trying it myself.

Didn't go as expected. Saw little chemical reaction no matter how I wrapped copper and aluminum wire around my prize. I inserted a galvanized bolt through the handle hole along with an iron file and tie wrapped everything together. I used another axe head as the sacrificial anode. Even used TWO car chargers to try and boost up the charge. Daily replaced the water and washing soda. A small stream of bubbles came forth. NOT the reactions I saw on the videos.

Eventually I got the axe cleaned. Daily I'd take a wire brush /drill and work off as much rust as I could. Used a hammer to tap the rust blisters off. Finally after 10 days, I decided it was as clean as I could make it.

Frustrating.

Now here is my question. A couple of days ago I bought a roll of 10 gauge wire, some alligator clips and liquid electrical tape. I decided to make some clips so hopefully I might get a better connection. I connected everything and got....nothing. No bubbles. Nothing. I ended up reconnecting everything as I had it before and at least got some reaction.

Now I am hoping to build a tank that will allow me to clean other finds and the question arose. Is 10 gauge copper wire too big? I thought bigger wire would conduct electricity better but am I overdoing it? I am stumped.
 
Heres what I do.

I take a empty gallon milk jug and cut a hole in the top. I fill it with 3 tablespoons of baking soda and a half gallon of water. One end goes to a stainless steel spoon the other connection goes to the item being cleaned. I use a old phone charger.

Some thing takes a few minutes and some takes months. I never seen a reaction.
 
I'm telling you dude, it's that insanely thick layer of rust that is on the axe head that you posted. If you drill a little hole in the axe head and insert a small screw into it it will solve your problem. Just connect the negative to the screw and you will see those bubbles. Forget about changing the solution or two car chargers or 12 gauge wire being to big. None of that is important! It's all about iron oxide slowing down the flow of electrons your charger is pumping into the axe head. It will work
 
I gotta go with Bank fisher on that one. The layer of rust is not very conductive so you're not really getting the reaction started. Gotta at least connect it to some bare metal or as close as you can get. Personally, and this is personally, I would've soaked it in pure muriatic acid for ten or twenty minutes and then knocked off some rust and scraped a bare metal connection clean.
 
I'm telling you dude, it's that insanely thick layer of rust that is on the axe head that you posted. If you drill a little hole in the axe head and insert a small screw into it it will solve your problem. Just connect the negative to the screw and you will see those bubbles. Forget about changing the solution or two car chargers or 12 gauge wire being to big. None of that is important! It's all about iron oxide slowing down the flow of electrons your charger is pumping into the axe head. It will work

+1!! You have to have a good connection to the item you wish to clean. On iron I do just as stated above, drill a little hole and use a screw, it ALWAYS works. On coins you almost have to grind your alligator clip teeth through the crud to get a good connection. This leaves marks on the coin but it is the only way to get a good connection. For this reason I tend to only use this method on terribly corroded copper coins that there is no other way of getting an id.
 
Try your setup on something that is only slightly rusted and see what reaction you get. This will allow you to see if it's a flaw in your rig and you can tweek it from there. You can even use a clad coin out of your pocket and see if your getting a reaction or not.
 
I'm telling you dude, it's that insanely thick layer of rust that is on the axe head that you posted. If you drill a little hole in the axe head and insert a small screw into it it will solve your problem. Just connect the negative to the screw and you will see those bubbles. Forget about changing the solution or two car chargers or 12 gauge wire being to big. None of that is important! It's all about iron oxide slowing down the flow of electrons your charger is pumping into the axe head. It will work


I did as you suggested. While I didn't drill into it, I systematically let it run for 24 hours and then tapped out the blisters that had formed and worked it out with a wire wheel on my drill. Then I tie wrapped several bolts together and filled the handle eye with them and secured them with washers and nuts. Then repeated the process again. Eventually After 10 days I had it where I was satisfied with it.

Never did I see more than a weak stream of bubbles. Nothing like the YouTube videos showed.

BUT I want to build a tank for more things to clean. I bought a roll of 10 gauge wire and attached them to alligator clips and tried them. Nothing. Nada. Went back to the previous method.

So what I'm trying to find out is what is the best gauge to use? I would have thought the 10 would be but now I'm not sure.
 
I'm glad to hear something worked. I use flexible mechanics wire about the same diameter as a paper clip to suspend the relic in the solution. It works for me. Have fun with it.
 
I got me a DC power supply and through varying the amperage and voltage, I can directly affect the amount of bubbling and fizzing going on in the tank. I've got about four pieces in there cooking right now but it really gets going around 12V and 6.6A. What kind of power are you working with?
 
I don't even use the alligator clips on mine. If I have something large I'll just file the rust off to get to some bare metal and then wrap a piece of wire around the bare spot really tight and drop it in the tank. After is hanging in there I'll alligator clip it just to the wire outside the solution so I don't destroy the clip. Seems to work pretty well. I just use an old DC power supply I stole from one of my kids old rechargable toys that is long since gone.
 
I'm glad to hear something worked. I use flexible mechanics wire about the same diameter as a paper clip to suspend the relic in the solution. It works for me. Have fun with it.

Thanks for your help. I finally buckled down and built a quality tank that worked. A lot of time and elbow grease went into this but it was a learning experience and the axe turned out better than I expected
 

Attachments

  • IMG_1745.jpg
    IMG_1745.jpg
    39.3 KB · Views: 361
  • IMG_1744.jpg
    IMG_1744.jpg
    106.4 KB · Views: 340
I use a phone charger, salt, baking soda, and a drinking glass.. Works great on coins and jewelry. It's the only way to clean silver chains from David Jones...

<°)))>{
 
Back
Top Bottom