Folks -
I have an old dovetail saw that belonged to my dad... very poor shape.... I
am doing an electrolysis test on it to see if it'll remove the rust. I
removed the handle and have had it going in the soda bath with about 1 amp
at 10v for a couple of hours. I'll post more as progress is made.
The easy way to remember how to hook up the leads is the RED lead - is the
RUSTY one... Put the sacrifical metal on that one.... The BLACK lead is what
you want to have be "back in the black"....
More to come!
John Moorhead
Lakeport, CA
Silvan wrote:
> john moorhead wrote:
>
>
>>The easy way to remember how to hook up the leads is the RED lead - is the
>>RUSTY one... Put the sacrifical metal on that one.... The BLACK lead is
>>what you want to have be "back in the black"....
>
>
> Hmmm... I can toss my cheat sheet now.
>
> It will, of course, work fabulously unless you do something wrong setting it
> up.
>
I just wimped out and used a sharpy marker to put a plus next to the
anode terminal and a minus next to the the terminal for the cathode.
Side note: My Frankenstein bucket was not generating enough amperage to
do a good job in a reasonable amount of time, so I tossed the PVC pipe
used as a shield. After doing that, the amperage jumped right up to
just over two amps. The next mod wil be to get some sheet steel to
increase the surface area of the anode.
Tim
john moorhead wrote:
> The easy way to remember how to hook up the leads is the RED lead - is the
> RUSTY one... Put the sacrifical metal on that one.... The BLACK lead is
> what you want to have be "back in the black"....
Hmmm... I can toss my cheat sheet now.
It will, of course, work fabulously unless you do something wrong setting it
up.
--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan <[email protected]>
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/
Silvan wrote:
> The Guy wrote:
>
>
>>used as a shield. After doing that, the amperage jumped right up to
>>just over two amps. The next mod wil be to get some sheet steel to
>>increase the surface area of the anode.
>
>
> It will really help. I didn't have sheet metal, so I made a sort of mesh
> thing out of some rusty rods. Surface area is your friend, and line of
> sight makes a big difference too.
>
> Gots t' watch them sparks though. If you have a tricky anode and a tricky
> part, it's, well, tricky to keep them from getting too close to each other.
>
> Sparks in a bucket of water that's generating hydrogen gas... Well, nothing
> happened, but it didn't look very safe. :)
>
I was concerned about the potential for shorts. That is why I initially
used a piece of PVC central vac pipe as a shield and drilled a bunch of
holes and sawed some slots in it. This approach had two problems:
First, the black steel pipe used as the anode did not have a whole lot
of surface area to begin with and the shield really reduced what was
"line of sight" considerably; and second, as the electrolysis worked,
the "muck" generated by the process and degradation of the anode clogged
a bunch of the holes. This further reduced the available surface area.
With the shield removed, the setup generates enough amperage to work on
parts in a reasonable amount of time. To keep the parts being cleaned
away from the anode, I lay a 1" X 1" piece of wood across the bucket and
suspend the parts from the wood using plastic packing strapping held in
place by plastic spring clips. This permits me to adjust the height of
the parts to achieve maximum immersion with out having the negative
leads in the solution. After all parts to be zapped are suspended in
the solution, I then connect the power leads. So far, this has worked
well to prevent shorts.
Tim
john moorhead wrote:
> Folks -
>
> I have an old dovetail saw that belonged to my dad... very poor
> shape.... I am doing an electrolysis test on it to see if it'll
> remove the rust. I removed the handle and have had it going in the
> soda bath with about 1 amp at 10v for a couple of hours. I'll post
> more as progress is made.
>
> The easy way to remember how to hook up the leads is the RED lead -
> is the RUSTY one... Put the sacrifical metal on that one.... The
> BLACK lead is what you want to have be "back in the black"....
>
> More to come!
>
> John Moorhead
> Lakeport, CA
If you add more soda you'll see more current and faster results.
The Guy wrote:
> used as a shield. After doing that, the amperage jumped right up to
> just over two amps. The next mod wil be to get some sheet steel to
> increase the surface area of the anode.
It will really help. I didn't have sheet metal, so I made a sort of mesh
thing out of some rusty rods. Surface area is your friend, and line of
sight makes a big difference too.
Gots t' watch them sparks though. If you have a tricky anode and a tricky
part, it's, well, tricky to keep them from getting too close to each other.
Sparks in a bucket of water that's generating hydrogen gas... Well, nothing
happened, but it didn't look very safe. :)
--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan <[email protected]>
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/