Electroysis Rust Removal

I read about this and had to try it, and wanted to pass it on.

I set a a small scale unit to see how it works as I had everything at the house needed. I used a 5 gallon bucket from Home Depot, pieces of rebar, Washing Soda, and battery charger.

Ronnie

What do you need to make this work? Not much, really:

• A large non-conductive container that will hold the part in water - A Rubbermaid tub, a plastic bucket, or a large non-metal trash can all work great as long as they don't leak.
• A battery charger or other source of 12V DC power.
• Wires or cables to connect the electrodes together
• Sacrificial electrodes - iron re-bar works great, stainless steel is very bad (and the result is illegal and dangerous).
• Arm & Hammer LAUNDRY Soda, also known as washing soda.
• Some chains or steel wire to suspend the part in the solution - copper wire is bad and messy.
• Water

The basics are pretty simple.

1. Find a container big enough to hold your part, plus some room to spare for the electrodes - they must not touch the part for this to work.
2. Fill the container with water and add 1/3 to 1/2 cup laundry soda per every 5 gallons of water. Mix thoroughly.
3. Position the sacrificial electrodes around the edge of the container and clamp them in place so that you have at least 4" of electrode above the water to connect to. The more the merrier - this is essentially a "line of sight" process between the part and the electrodes.
4. Wire all of the electrodes together so they are, electrically speaking, one big electrode. Make sure all connections are on clean metal and sufficiently tight to work.
5. Suspend your part in the solution using the wire/chains so it is not touching the bottom and is not touching any electrodes. The part must be electrically connected to the support mechanism and not connected to the electrodes for this to work.
6. Attach the battery charger NEGATIVE lead to the part and the POSITIVE lead to the electrodes. Do not get this backwards! If you do, you'll use metal from your part to de-rust your electrodes instead of the other way around -the positive electrodes are sacrificial and will erode over time. That's how the water becomes iron-rich.
7. Double check everything to be sure the right things are touching, the wrong things are not touching, and the cables are hooked up correctly.
8. Turn on the power - plug in the charger and turn it on.

Within seconds you should see a large volume of tiny bubbles in the solution - these bubbles are oxygen and hydrogen (very flammable!). The rust and gunk will bubble up to the top and form a gunky layer there. More gunk will form on the electrodes - after some amount of use, they will need to be cleaned and/or replaced - the electrodes give up metal over time. That's why re-bar is such a nice choice - it's cheap and easy to get in pre-cut lengths.
The process is self-halting - when there is no more rust to remove, the reaction stops. This is handy because you don't have to monitor it, and because you can do large parts where they are not totally submersed at one time (aka, by rotating them and doing half at a time) without worrying about "lines" in the final part.
Once you are done, the part should immediately be final cleaned and painted - the part is very susceptible to surface rust after being removed from the solution. There will be a fine layer of black on the part that can be easily removed, and once it is removed, the part can be primed/painted as needed.

Safety Precautions

You're playing with serious stuff here, so stay safe. It's not rocket science, but if you're new to this, you might not know all of this - so read up before you do any of this.

• This process produces highly flammable and explosive hydrogen gas (remember the Hindenburg?), so do it outside, or in some other well ventilated area. Hydrogen is lighter than air (like natural gas), so it will collect near the ceiling - not sink to the floor like some other flammable vapors will (like propane and gasoline). If you have open flames near this (Hint: gas appliances like water heaters and furnaces have pilot lights!) you will most likely severely injure or kill yourself (and others near you) and become a contender for the Darwin Awards in the process.
• Assuming you used re-bar and steel wire/chain like you were told to, the waste water resulting from this is iron-rich - it's perfectly safe to pour it out onto the grass and your lawn will love it. Beware of ornamental shrubs that don't like iron-rich soil though, unless you like making your wife mad at you.
• Make sure the battery charger (or whatever source of power you use) stays dry. All of the usual cautions about any electrical device in a wet environment apply here.
• The solution is electrically "live" - it is a conductor in this system. Turn off the power before making adjustments or sticking your hands into the solution. You can get a mild shock if you stick your hands into the water with the power on.
• The solution is fairly alkaline and will irritate your skin and eyes. Use gloves and eye protection. Immediately wash off any part of your body the solution comes into contact with with plenty of fresh water.
• Don't use stainless steel for the electrodes. The results are toxic and illegal to dump out.
• Don't use copper for the electrodes and anything else in the water - the results are messy.

If you are unsure of any of this or unsure about your safety - STOP! Get help before you do something stupid. Use common sense, be smart about what you're doing, and stay safe so you can finish your restoration project and enjoy it.

 

I will post pictures tomorrow after I remove it from the bucket.

Ronnie

 

straight up..

lye works better..

 

Just thinking this is safer.

 

Here is a picture of the before and after Electroysis of the headlight bucket.

 

Will this hurt rubber, like a arm bushings?

 

nope

 

Headlight bucket.............i thought it was a german soldiers helmet. hahhahahah

Really though, I've done this too!! It works...

 

Ive heard this will cause hydrogen imbrittlement so be carefull on strucural parts.

 

Thanks for the heads up, I will have to look into that. THis was the first time I heard about this and had to try it. I did read up on it on the web, and never saw that. THen again every thing I read was on how to do it.

 

this should be stickyed.

 

Can this be done with ashort block engine? i have a short block i would like to try this on, but worried aboput the pistons????

 

Heard arguments for and against the hydrogen embrittlement. My take on it is it won't be a problem for general parts.
I have used the process on a body shell, built a temporary tank lined with plastic. Worked good, but still needs some scrubbing afterwards to remove the black substance left behind (forget what it is). Should be scrubbed clean while still wet otherwise the black stuff hardens - can still be wire brushed.
There is a good thread on Metalmeet about it.
Still undecided on whether this is better than phosporic acid, but it is a little friendlier (if you don't shock yourself) and as an added bonus it will cook old paint etc off too!
Barry

 

I have been puting parts in and letting them sit over night and then throughing them in the blast cabinet to remove the black. It cuts down the blast time by like 90%.

I was going to do my motor, but I did fined someone that still has an acid tank. So I am taking my block and the 1950 Merc motor I just picked up and get them tanked.

Ronnie

 

it's 5:48 PM Central. I jsut put the electiricty to mine. Pretty cool so far, I'm actually watching the slime rise up off the rebar. I'll check up in it in a few hours. Great thread! Cheap too.

should I DARE even think about putting my Y Block anyhill carb in this stuff? I don't see why not, jsut worried about the material

 

I did this with a NASTY set of Pontiac heads. Stripped all the valves and stuff out and left them in for a week..actually forgot about them. I used a concentrated solution of lye, instead of soda. They came out clean as fresh cast with no metal loss. I also know of/have seen straight axles, tie rods, drums, spindles done and they come out beautiful. Messy and time consumeing, but the price is GREAT...

 

i just did a 40 ford dash this week.. (tuesday)

removed all the paint, rust and crap..

in 4 hours..

 

Hydrogen embrittalment will occur on the cathotic side (the rebar) not the anodic side (your headlight bucket). Do you realy care?

 

Very cool! I love this site- always new ideas to get the tasks done faster, easier and CHEAPER!!

 

Do a search and you'll find a ton of stuff about this. I went through this about 6 - 7 months ago. There is one old dude on here that knows a ton about this stuff. I did it on parts of my '56

 

Do you have to have a special charger because when I tried it my charger was to smart and thought it wasn't hooked up right so it wouldn't come on.
I thought about hooking up a battery in parallel with the water to see if that would work but I haven't tried that yet.

 

Most I have seen use a cheapie charger (dumb, or 'less sophisicated' if you prefer ).

 

thanks for the post, i have been wanting to try this , looks like it works pretty well !

 

just a plain old battery charger works. I am told it works by line-of-sight, though I did not have any problems with the side of the part that did not see the electrode. I forgot and stick my stupid hand in it while running. You don't really get a shock if you stick your hand in it, just a tingle. If you have a cut in your hand you will definately feel it though. Just a little sting, nothing big.

The simplest and most effective rust removal methods in no particular order:

Electrolisys
Molasses
Vinegar

 

I've read that is does several places, also read that baking the part in an oven directly afterwards reverses the process. But I still wouldn't put my spindles in there.

 

I put in my 292 timing cover yesterday and let it sit for about 18 hours. Went out first thing this morning, and took it out. Looked pretty good. There was about 1/3 inch deposit of of built up (rock hard) rust that it didn't get, which is understandable. I had to use a chisel to get that crap out of there. I wire wheeled it, wiped it down with mineral spirits, and painted it. Looks great. The rebar was FUBAR, so I scrubbed it down, and changed out the water, and then put in my 4 bbl intake. Will see tomorrow.

I've read up in here and Landracing.com about mole-asses. I have heard mostly positive info in here, but in LSR, they showed a lot of pics of pitting, especially in areas like cylinders. I haven't tried it yet, so I can neither confirm nor deny the claims.

Guess I'll search for vinegar now.

It seems all this work can be done in a blasting cabinet with blasting media, with the exception of the internals of components you are blasting, like head ports an dcooling passages in the block. Is all this time and effort worth it? Just wondering.

 

You don't get the metal removal with electrolysis that you do with blasting.

Shawn

 

Structuraly loaded aircraft compenents that get plated are baked afterwards to get the hydrogen out.


Temp and time varies but 350 for 5 or 6 hours should do it. (get an oven at a yard sale or something, your other half will kill you if you bake parts in the 'food' oven)

Important part is to bake them IMMEDIATELY after plating. If you wait a few weeks, the damage is already done.

 

Yes it's most important they're baked very soon after plating.

 

I have tried this and it seems to work, I have also set up a molassas bath in a wheelie bin. One thing I would suggest is if you are using a 12v supply put a high wattage head lamp in series with the electrodes, it will stop you blowing the fuse if the parts touch and lets you see if current is flowing as the lamp will glow and it acts as a current limiter.