GREAT unexpected way to remove rust from ANYTHING?!
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Honda-Tech Member
Joined: Mar 2009
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From: Chicago SPLURGE, Il
GREAT unexpected way to remove rust from ANYTHING?!
As i'm in the process of getting rust off of my brakes, i found a great and innovative way to remove rust without all the elbow grease involved (?hurray?). i think this could help ALOT of begginers like myself bring their old cars ack to life and working order ^_^
the process is called Electrolysis
theres hundreds of tutorials on how to do this, so i thought i could just post the link and tutorial here:
http://www.rowand.net/Shop/Tools/Electrolysis.htm
The Details
What do you need to make this work? Not much, really:
1. 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.
2. A battery charger or other source of 12V DC power.
3. Wires or cables to connect the electrodes together
4. Sacrificial electrodes - iron re-bar works great, stainless steel is very bad (and the result is illegal and dangerous).
5. Arm & Hammer LAUNDRY Soda, also known as washing soda. (baking soda may work in some cases)
6 Some chains or steel wire to suspend the part in the solution - copper wire is bad and messy.
6b. instead suspending the part with a conductive bar, attach the negative wire to the part and wrap it around a wooden stick (or anything) to suspend it in the air.
7. 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.
Turn on the power - plug in the charger and turn it on.
8. 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.
there are pics at the bottom of the site in the link.
hopefully someone can discover this method like i did and save themselves alot of time and pain
the process is called Electrolysis
theres hundreds of tutorials on how to do this, so i thought i could just post the link and tutorial here:
http://www.rowand.net/Shop/Tools/Electrolysis.htm
The Details
What do you need to make this work? Not much, really:
1. 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.
2. A battery charger or other source of 12V DC power.
3. Wires or cables to connect the electrodes together
4. Sacrificial electrodes - iron re-bar works great, stainless steel is very bad (and the result is illegal and dangerous).
5. Arm & Hammer LAUNDRY Soda, also known as washing soda. (baking soda may work in some cases)
6 Some chains or steel wire to suspend the part in the solution - copper wire is bad and messy.
6b. instead suspending the part with a conductive bar, attach the negative wire to the part and wrap it around a wooden stick (or anything) to suspend it in the air.
7. 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.
Turn on the power - plug in the charger and turn it on.
8. 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.
there are pics at the bottom of the site in the link.
hopefully someone can discover this method like i did and save themselves alot of time and pain
Last edited by Linked; Jun 21, 2009 at 08:56 PM.
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