Rust Never Sleeps
Test Electrolysis |
From left to right:
- The Arm and Hammer Washing Soda (1 tablespoon per gallon)
- A plastic pot that holds enough water to totally immerse the object to be re-rusted
- A piece of steel or iron (don’t use stainless steel or aluminium) to act as an anode
- A battery charger that will provide the juice
- The item to be de-rusted
In my case it took about a gallon of water to cover the item. I marked it on the side of the container for future reference.
One gallon almost drowns the baby on this Tidy Cat container |
Next submerge the item into the solution:
Negative is connected to the part you want to de-rust |
The key thing here is to have an anode with a large surface area. I used an old metal pie plate. Some people suggest using a cut up cookie sheet. The anode will eventually decompose, so don’t submerge the battery charge connector in the water.
Once you turn on the charger you’ll see bubbles and you’ll know it’s working. After an hour or so you’ll have something that looks like this:
Rust floating to the top |
After about 2 hours I took the part out of the solution. It looked like this:
The test part out of solution |
I dried it off and then used a dremel abrasive buff for about 30 seconds: Here ‘s the result:
After some cleanup- success! |
This was pretty impressive, so next I tried to de-rust a real Heinkel part, in this case the intake manifold support. This piece is in pretty typical condition of the things I want to de-rust:
Rusty Heinkel Manifold Support |
Three hours in the same solution and it came out like this:
De-Rusted Heinkel Manifold Part |
I’m encouraged enough that I’m going to try some other pieces. I’m going large and rusty for my next subject!
Rusty Rims- will electrolysis work? |
So was there an odor? Can I do this in my garage without having to air it out? Nice job with pics, looks pretty easy.
No real odor. You have to use steel as the anode. If you use other materials you might release hazardous fumes.