Electrolosis Cleaning?

P

paleot

Senior Member
I have read several posts about cleaning parts with washing soda and a battery charger. First question where do I find this washing soda, what is the name brand to look for? How do I hook up the battery charger to the iron anode and the part?
Thanks Tony
 
Arm & Hammer washing soda in the laundry detergent section of the supermarket.

It's really not cleaning, it's rust conversion, and it only works on iron and steel.

Works pretty good, though. Remember the positive (red) goes to the anode and the negative (black) to your work piece otherwise you'll harm the part you're trying to clean.
 
Easier to find is PH Plus at Walmart or any store that handles pool supplies. What you are looking for is sodium carbonate. Use about 1 tbsp per gallon of water. You hook the negative to the part to be cleaned, and the positive to your scrap piece.
 
You might want to Google "Electrolysis Cleaning" and read up on the procedures for doing this. I have used this process for cleaning non automotive items like relics, artifacts, old coins, etc., that had been in the ground or under water for many many years. These items were made of both ferrous and non ferrous materials, so I disagree with a statement made on another post. However, I would not suggest using this method on anything considered to be a rare or valuable item since this process could have some negative aspects.
 
About 10 years ago, I set up an electrosys tub to clean some brake parts. I spent some time and had a good commercial variable DC power supply rather than just a battery charger, and experimented with it quite a bit. It worked, but not as well as I would have liked, and it was quite messy. Nowadays, I have a 5 gallon pail of Evaporust, that I just put parts into for a day or two, and the results are much better. I did a complete '50 Ford grille (the chrome was good, but the backs were quite rusted), and was amazed by the results. The drawback is that it is quite expensive (I paid slightly over $100 for the pail with shipping) but 5 gallons is supposed to treat about 150 lbs of parts and I am still using mine. If you have a large piece to do (fender, etc.) electrolsys with a custom "tank" may be the way to go, but IMHO, a bucket of Evaporust gives much better results, and is cleaner, faster, and easier.

I think that a molasses bath works by the same method (chelation), but I've tried that as well and never had good results. I probably had the wrong kind of molasses or the wrong mixture ratio or something. If I ever get a large part I need de-rusted, I may revisit molasses, but for now, the Evaporust is doing fine.
 
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There is a pretty good list of guys on the H A M B that have or are using the molasses system with excellent results. You might have to use the search button.
 
Electrolysis Cleaning is only good for line of sight. Will not clean inside blocks as will mollasses
 
Google spooge tank. I used this quite successfully to strip a small mill I was rebuilding. I went to the local big box store and bought one of those large storage containers. Then I cut up some 3/4" rebar I had laying around into 4 pieces that could stand verticaly in each corner of the tank. This gives you multiple 'lines of sight'. Connected all of them up with jumper cables and hooked up a battery charger. It worked great.

There is a video or pics of someone that actually made one large enough to do a boat trailer.
 
texas webb said:
Google Ford Garage-scroll to the bottom,tools&tecniques.
9 percent vinegar works faster than molasses.
Click to expand...

As I understand it, molasses works by "chelation", an ion exchange process, while vinegar is an acid. You have to be much more careful with it. One of the things that impressed me was that the Evaporust, while doing a terrific job on the rust on the back surfaces of the grille, had no effect on the still decent chrome on the front. Also, if you forget and leave the parts in too long, there don't seem to be any ill effects.
 
I just started looking into rust removal as I have a very rusty engine bloc. One thing I discovered with the electrolysis method is that the surface of the metal object has its hardness change, not good for suspension parts and engines. Muriatic acid does the same thing with surface hardness. Vinegar, being an acid, will remove good metal along with the oxidation. It seems like molasses is about the best of the home methods. Using Evaporust would be much better, except the price is prohibitive to soak an engine bloc.
Milt K from Pa
 
Be very careful dipping an engine as some of those products will eat your block where you don't want it to. Get it baked & cleaned, may be more expensive but safer & old blocks are getting harder to find.
 
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