Derusting - Electrolysis Revisited

[Harry]

I'm getting ready to set up a batch process for getting a couple of Fairbanks Morse carburetors (mixers) unstuck and cleaned up. Franz had sent me a sheet of graphite and so I set out to find some washing soda.

Called Ace Hardware for washing soda. Huh? What's that? (If it doesn't have a trade name and a bar code...) Went to Target. Nothing in the laundry soap aisle. In the pool chemical section, I found both sodium bi-carbonate and sodium carbonate. Hmmm? Wonder what sodium carbonate is.

Back at home, looked up washing soda in Google. Says it's sodium carbonate. Damn! I had it right in my hand. Now I've got to go back there. Also need a 5 gallon plastic pail. This should be interesting and I'm looking forward to getting back out to my shop.

"Washing soda--sodium carbonate--is in the same family as baking soda. It has just been processed differently. It is much more caustic/alkaline, with a pH of 11, and while it doesn't give off harmful fumes, you do need to wear gloves. It is found in the laundry section of most supermarkets."

See: http://users.moscow.com/oiseming/rustdemo/rustdemo.htm
for excellent information.

Remember: POSITIVE (RED) Lead to the WASTE electrode.

I've picked one of my ugly ducklings to work on...

[Chuck Martin]

Try 20 mule team borax. It's cheap, and available in most grocerys in the laundry detergent area. I have used it many times with great results. The electrolysis proceses is great for cleaning up the old iron!

[Greg Shipley]

I get my washing soda online at:
http://www.soapsgonebuy.com

[Sky]

( on a smaller scale) i have always used a 5 gallon bucket (for small parts) and a small full box of baking soda and a peice of bar steel for an electrode, it has been a exelent mix so far for what i have, so i suppose if i added 2 boxes of soda compaired to what 1 already does for me, i'd have a powerfull mix going. hmmm........i might try that instead.......use 2 boxes.......


how could i make a big electrolisis tank?

[Harry]

The amount of soda you use controlls the amount of current drawn from your battery charger. More is better, except that you don't want to overload your charger.

By the way, Borax is not the same stuff, defined as sodium borate decahydrate; sodium pyroborate; birax; sodium tetraborate decahydrate; sodium biborate and is a natural mineral compound (Na2B4O7 • 10H2O).

[Al Wait]

Just remember to use a pliable plastic bucket. I have a 17 gallon one from the hardware store; cost $8. Don't use a polycarbonate plastic; they break. I was trying to clean a large part in one of those, and ended up with 15 gallons of dirty Castrol Super-Clean on the basement floor. I was not pleased! Rule of thumb; if the plastic is transparent, don't use it. Also be careful to keep the sacrificial anode from touching the part. I keep a brick between them. I have no problem finding washing soda in NH. Al Wait

[KeithW]

I'm just getting going on a large project using electrolysis. Seems like it either works great or not at all . Still trying to figure it all out.

keithw

[Ironman]

I have never had any problem getting washing soda. Go to your local grocery store and look in the laundry products aisle. I buy Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda. It works great for electrolysis. Some of my local grocery stores carry it, but I have never found it at places like K Mart or Wal Mart. When mixed correctly with water, it can get to bubbling really good during the electrolysis process. As long as you make sure that you have a good connection to the part itself and you keep your electrodes fairly clean, the process works pretty fast. Once you get used to using this method to free up stuck parts, you'll throw the old "blue tip wrench" away. I never did believe in using extreme heat to free stuck parts anyway, so I was thrilled to learn about electrolysis. It works great, and it's easier on the parts than applying extreme heat to them.

[Harry]

Got it all set up. Guess what? I had Sodium Carbonate in my storage bin all along. The dummies at Ace didn't know what washing soda was and this dummy didn't know what sodium carbonate was. I never took chemistry in high school.

I put a pound of stuff in a half pail of water and I have plenty of conduction at 6 volts to make 6 amps and a good boil of bubbles. Time will tell. Using copper bus wire, you can hang more than one item and simply touching copper to copper makes the negative connection. The positive is connected to a graphite plate. I run a small fan pointed across the room to spread out the hydrogen.

[Harry]

Rick says, "Yes you can soak an entire engine!"

http://community.webshots.com/album/500489932fMQqCP

[KidDynamo]

Harry's bucket and the surrounding area looks pretty clean! I have a large plastic tub that I use and have had the same solution in there for I'd guess 3 or 4 years. About a year and a half ago, I switched to a 24 volt battery charger and this speeded things up even though it is only a 6 amp charger.

I hang my parts from baling wire- it doesn't rust, of course. I am using scrap steel plate for the positive plate. It needs to be cleaned every so often with a wire brush and replaced when it disappears.

I am getting tired of looking at the horribly cruddy stew pot that my container has become, though. I think it has about 6" of sludge on the bottom. Maybe I should start over.

(I probably have one cup of sodium carbonate in about 25 gallons of water but I can't really say for sure. I haven't added any since I got started with this tank, though)

[E.C. Mims]

The best place to get Sodium Carbonate is at your local pool supply store. It is pure and doesn't have the "perfume" so many laundry soaps insist on adding. It is used in pools to raise the Ph.

[Franz©]

Aw shoot, it's about time to jump in here since Harry mentioned my name.

First thing I can absolutely assure everyone of, stronger solutions don't accomplish anything beyond wasting Washing Soda. Been all over the block with solution strength, and 1 Tablespoon per gallon of water pretty much maximizes performence.

Current draw is determined by the amount of surface area of the accumulator in the solution, and little else. I actually raise & lower the carbon to slow the process because I can boil the tank with my power supply.

12 and 24 volt supplys work best, with 24 being more efficient. Yes, I did experiment with a welder, more or less to see what would happen, and there is just too much current available. The main result was boiling away the solution. Cleaning time didn't improve over the 24 volt forklift charger I used as a comparison.

Frankly, if you're heating the solution more than 20° above ambient temperature, you're wasting energy, and not improving cleaning speed.

Ideally, I'd love to be able to continuously filter the solution to eliminate the crap in the tank, but I have yet to find a cost effective way of doing that. There is something to be said for skimming the floating layer on top of the solution before removing the object being derusted, with a fishtank skimmer, as it makes the washdown a lot easier.

The solution requires refreshing only with water, to replace the water that has been vaporized and electrolized off.

Tanks, well, there was that nasty situation when I tried the neighbor's pool, but I really didn't like him much anyhow. Fiberglass bathtubs seem to magicly appear at the curb with some regularity, and make excellent tanks. There are also the fiberglass concrete forms used in commercial building. If you keep the current down, a pool liner inside of a containment works very well.

The crud at the bottom of the tank, when you really get tired of it, it can be shoveled out fairly easily, especially if you pump the solution into a few garbage bag lined cans.

[Bill Sherlock]

Anyone beside me use Soda Ash for electrolysis? It's used in some municipal water systems for oxidizing iron in the water so it can be filtered out. Had a bag given to me after a different filter system was installed in local water plant.

Bill

[Harry]

Check out the lower right corner on my post attachment above. Soda Ash, Active Ingredient: Sodium Carbonate 100%.

Pool PH balancer! PH Add or PH+

[ErikG]

Hi Harry,
The setup you have looks just like what I have used for 2 years. Except when I did a Fairbanks headless block. I used a Rubermade 45 gallon tote and put the whole block in. It cleaned it up nice and helped loosen the stuck piston. I did a demo on electrolysis last fall and people are still asking questions about it! Remember that it cleans by line of sight. I take my parts out once a day and scrub with a nylon brush, rotate the part and put it back in. Like Ironman said it sure works great on loosening up parts.


Good Luck,
Erik Grund

[jeff jamerson]

i am thinking of trying this on an fm zd block but have never done it before. doesnt electrolysis produce hydrogen gas? hydrogen next to a battery charger concerns me. all i can think of is the hindenburgh. is it really as safe as i am being lead to beleive?
thanks, jeff

[Franz©]

Originally Posted by jeff jamerson

i am thinking of trying this on an fm zd block but have never done it before. doesnt electrolysis produce hydrogen gas? hydrogen next to a battery charger concerns me. all i can think of is the hindenburgh. is it really as safe as i am being lead to beleive?
thanks, jeff

Yes, it does produce hydrogen. It also produces oxygen. So does a battery when you charge it.
Next to a battery charger, well, same situation as charging a battery, again. Employ the same safety procedures you'd use charging a battery.

Hindenburg effect, I'd estimate you'd need about 2 swimming pools full of water to get that much hydrogen, and you'd need to accumulate it. Run the process in a ventilated area, and you have no problem.

I don't recommend hanging over the tank with a lit cigarette in your mouth, but if you don't get stupid there is little hazard.

[Nork]

Hi,

After seeing Harry’s pictures of water ducts cleaned out, I figured that this is the way to go for my hopper on a Lister D.
How long does it take in average?
Hour’s days or maybe only minutes?
And is there a metal that will be corroding faster (like brass).
I ask this cause of the brass tap on the water jacket on the Lister D

This is a darn interesting thread and learning a lot out of it.

NorK

[Chuck Martin]

If you have yellow metal parts or fine threads that you are concerned about, you can mask them from seeing the voltage with duct tape. Shouldn't hurt it though unless you hook it up backwards and use you part as the anode! The current will only go in a straight line to the part, so to do a good job, you have to have anodes hanging around to eliminate blind spots.