Electrolysis on a budget!

Nice simple set up. It does work.


Thanks!

I think I see 1939....

Doesn't take long!

Very useful technique for cleaning up all kinds of stuff. You can use a wall wart in place of the battery, put a 12v bulb in series as a current limiter. Just remember most cheap wal warts have no mains isolation, so stick in a GFI outlet probably might be a good idea.

I've used this technique on a large scale to clean up rusted sheet metal parts and such. I used stainless steel as the anode and sodium carbonate in solution.
The process does create Hexavalent Chromium.

Also I don't recommend "Huffing" the fumes!

Small-time electrolysis is not a high budget hobby. My Blackberry charger cost 65 cents at a thrift store, plus a few alligator clips. That looks like an effective set-up, though. Washing soda is an excellent catalyst.

Nice work, clean and simple. I did one with an old cordless phone charger and I did a pretty rough looking 1944 GW today with baking soda like Steveo mentioned on another post and it worked great.

I made my own using a battery charger, plastic tub and some pieces of rebar. Cheapest form of sodium carbonate I found to add to water (1 Tablespoon/gallon of water) was by going to a swimming pool supply store and buying Soda Ash (pH+) as thats what this is. Works better than baking soda which is sodium bicarbonate (not sodium carbonate)....

I would send a pic of my setup but it's too ugly to look at. Basically a 3 or 4 gallon plastic container. Had some old metal shelf supports I let my kid have some fun with the sander to take most of the paint off of then I screwed that to a scrap wood frame that fits on top of it so I have 6 legs coming down that fit inside the container. Ran some copper plumbing strap around the top to tie the all together and juice them up. Then for the other side I just drilled 2 holes in a piece of wood and put a piece of heavy copper wire into that the runs the length of that board and just sites on top of the frame. Had an old battery charger from some old remote control car or something that I attach to one side to the plumbing strap and the other to the wire. Neither of them ever touch the water solution so I'm not worried about them breaking down over time. Then anything going into the tank I just hang from a piece of wire that loops over the copper wire going over the top and it seems to work pretty good. Just ugly as sin, More into function over form anyway and didn't cost me a thing. Not tried coins in it but works great on old horse shoes and medium sized hunks of iron.