Electrolysis Rust Remover

By stan the toolfool
Category: Machining, Tools
Time Required: 1 hour to make 3 hours to use
Difficulty: Moderate

Steps

Step #1:

Nasty, rusty lathe tools.

Conclusion

This can be made from scrap materials and recycled or re-used when finished. It is very simple to make when you understand the simple process, You can improve on your next one! It will not last, the cage is a consumable. Build it custom for each project, do not over-think this. K.I.S.S.

7 Responses to Electrolysis Rust Remover

Plognark on May 16th, 2012 at 5:39 pm said:

I was just researching this to clean up some old milling and lathe parts, and from what I can tell copper is fine, but you don’t want it touching the water. Only the steel should be submerged.

I imagine with copper’s lower resistance the current will preferentially bypass the steel, killing off the electrolytic effect, and rapidly corroding the copper away. This is only suitable for ferrous metal, if I read right.

More info here: http://antique-engines.com/electrol.asp

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Plognark on May 16th, 2012 at 5:56 pm said:

I’m not sure about the material for the cage, but everything I read indicates that you want to stick with steel. Other examples I see use a steel clamp or chain to suspend the item to be cleaned. As long as they don’t touch the electrodes I think you’re ok.

Stainless steel is mixed with chromium, and while it’s consumed more slowly than regular steel, this reaction would steel create chromate and hexavalent chromium. These are pretty horrible things, so don’t do it. Hexavalent chromium dumping is what Erin Brockovich fought against. Cancer is bad, mmkay?

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stan the toolfool on May 17th, 2012 at 1:12 am said:

Yes, more like a cage, all parts of the rusty item need to be “line of sight” with the cage, but not touching. This wire is a consumable and is not graded for neatness! Everything but the battery charger can be junk from the scrap pile. If you find a working charger there that’s great too!

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Matt Park on May 20th, 2012 at 6:01 pm said:

Oh yeah, I remember that “Chrome 6″.

I suppose you could also use a similar process, by making the cage out of zinc and swapping the charge to lightly galvanize the part for long term storage? Though I guess oil would work about as well…

Regardless, this is a sweet guide, and I look forward to trying it.

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stan the toolfool on June 3rd, 2012 at 4:15 am said:

I hope you didn’t copper plate your plane, it will turn green. Use steel wire only!

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Plognark on June 4th, 2012 at 6:40 pm said:

Did a successful test run with some old rusty nuts and bolts. I had to use a deep cycle 12 volt battery for the power source; the power supply I got has some finicky circuitry that I haven’t gotten figured out yet.

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Plognark on June 4th, 2012 at 8:26 pm said:

Your results sound about right. You may not notice anything with the copper yet, but I did dig up some more info on it:

“It is important that any copper connector to the anode not touch the solution. If it does, copper will oxidize to cupric ion, Cu++. The connector will be destroyed. Most of the copper ions formed should precipitate as copper carbonate or copper hydroxide, but if any of this dissolved copper reaches the cathode it will be reduced to copper metal on the iron object. Its presence will promote rapid rerusting.”

Had to dig down deep in this thread: http://forum.woodenboat.com/showthread.php?99259-Electrolysis-rust-removal-basic-method-and-tests-(with-photos)

If I understand the chemistry right most of the copper will settle out, but any of it that manages to swirl around and hit the iron cathode will help oxidize the iron all over again.

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