Playing with Electricity

A few post back I mentioned an electrolysis method that I was planning on utilizing to clean some of my finds. The simplest method I could find called for a 9 to 12 Volt DC wall adapter, a pair of alligator clips, a piece of stainless steel flatware, and a glass of salty water. Although the actual voltage of the adapter is not terribly important, it is crucial that it be DC voltage. I opted for a 12 Volt adapter because I had a stray one and didn't know what it belonged to. Basically you cut the end off the adapter and attach the alligator clips to the exposed wires. Also, I've read some places that baking soda can be mixed with water in lieu of salt.  I used salt because I accidentally bought a big thing of coarse salt instead of fine at the store. OK, truth be told I intentionally bought coarse salt because it seemed like a good idea at the time, but soon realized it was too crunchy for sprinkling over food.


After everything is prepared, clip one of the leads to the metal object being cleaned, the other to the stainless steel flatware and drop the whole thing in the salt water. Well, all except the adapter which you will plug into the wall. It's important that the flatware and object being cleaned do not touch. I managed to avoid this, but imagine that it would burn up the adapter pretty quickly. If everything is hooked up right tiny bubbles will start to form on the dirty object and rise to the surface. If the bubbles form on the flatware you have the positive and negative leads reversed. In case of the latter situation, unplug the adapter, reverse the leads and try again. After a little while a whole bunch of nasty will be floating on top of the water.

I started my test with a dirty Lincoln penny I found in the park.  After the penny had been in the water for about 5 minutes I realized a few things.

1. The adapter was getting pretty hot.
2. I was never going to use this knife for food again.
3. The penny was disintegrating.

I unplugged the device and removed what was left of the penny. I determined that perhaps I should do a little more reading on the subject before attempting this a second time. I found out that you should not clean copper using electrolysis and that the process will "gunk up" the anode (read knife).

After testing a few more pieces of various metal things I decided it was time to try and clean the hatchet head I had found a couple of weeks before. In case you forgot this is what the hatchet looked like before cleaning.

Here is a picture of the hatchet being cleaned even though you can't really see anything.

And finally here is a picture of the hatchet after cleaning.

It's hard to tell from the photo but it actually looks way better. It took several rounds of electrolysis and a bit of scrubbing with a toothbrush, but in the end I'm happy with the results. They suggest that when you're finished you coat the cleaned object with oil to protect it from further rust.

If you want to try this method I highly recommend you do more reading on the subject. I consider it a small miracle that I didn't shock myself or set any fires so please do this at your own risk. Here are a couple links from people far more creditable and experienced than I to get you started.

http://www.ehow.com/how_4966889_build-electrolysis-tank.html
http://gometaldetecting.com/electrolysis_cleaning.htm