[Spridgets] Electrolytic Rust Removal

Kevin Valentine kevinv1275 at gmail.com
Sun Mar 22 13:35:54 MST 2009


On Mar 22, 2009, at 3:41 PM, Timothy H. Collins wrote:

> Another word of caution.
> I was using a plastic bin from a refrigerator for my bucket and  
> bare wire to make my connections - just doing small parts. During  
> the process something shifted and shorted the sacrificial metal to  
> my parts. The (small) bare wire began to glow like a toaster wire  
> (ten amp battery charger) which melted the plastic bin which then  
> caught on fire. Globs of burning plastic dropped onto my wood top  
> work bench which then too caught on fire. The fire never got very  
> large, but this happened while I was behind the garage wire  
> brushing parts. I heard the smoke alarm go off and found the fire  
> when I went to investigate. So. . .  make sure you have a stable  
> setup so you don't have a fire. A smoke alarm in the garage is  
> generally a bother because it goes off so much, but that day it  
> saved me.

Tim,

I've been doing this for about 25 years.  (I have 3 permanent  tanks).

Some suggestions from my experience:

All the wires from the positive terminal should have an inline fuse.   
1 amp is sufficient.

All wires should be insulated.  I use red for positive and black for  
neg.  (Neg ALWAYS goes to the part you are cleaning).

All wires should have an alligator clip on the end.

Always let the neg wire (clipped to the part you are cleaning) be  
submerged into the solution and NEVER let the positive wire (clipped  
to the sacrificial metal rod) be submerged.  The rod should protrude  
above the solution with the positive wire being clipped to (it above  
the solution).

Cleaning is NOT line of sight!   All the metal connected to the neg  
terminal will be cleaned.  (I know some of the directions on the  
internet tell you that the cleaning is line of sight, but it is  
not).  The solution is carrying the current and the solution is  
surrounding the part you are cleaning.  It will clean everything it  
is touching.

All my tanks are plastic and I use Stainless steel rods for my  
tanks.  Stainless works better because it lasts much longer than re- 
bar.  When I don't have any Stainless I use re-bar, old bolts, angle  
iron, etc, etc.......  Basically anything that will rust will work as  
the sacrificial rod.  The rod should be bare metal, not painted or  
coated.  Don't use galvanized or chrome as the rod.

You can clean chrome plated materials in the tank, but if there is  
any rust under the chrome, it will peal the chrome off the part.

Kevin V.


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