6 replies to this topic

[welshy]

I don't think this process has been discovered before but it is TRULY AWESOME and depressing to all the people who discover it after spending hours with grinders, wire brushes, emory cloth etc.

Basically you get a rusty part like a caliper put it in your home made electrolysis machine (costs about £10) leave it for a few hours then when you come back the rust is gone and they look brand new even showing the cast numbers.

The link below shows how to do it.
http://www.bhi.co.uk/hints/rust.htm

The link below shows examples:
http://www.locostbui...tid=9158&page=1

[Jammy]

Erm, electrolysis has been around for donkeys years, Pretty sure they'll be a reason why it isn't used more widely, I could explain it now, but I'll let someone like Dan or GW explain for once!

[Madmax]

that methods been around for decades, havent tried it though



will do now

thanks

[Madmax]

theres got to be something to do with health and safety that doesnt allow it... in homes at least

[Guess-Works.com]

Not being a chemist nor alchemist.... but from my dim and distant mast O level in chemistry...

Rust = Iron Oxide

Therefore you need to remove the 02 from the FE... you need to do that with some checmical which o2 likes more than FE

I cant remeber what household soda is, but I have a feeling the O bonds with Hydrogen to make water which leaves something nasty floating around

On the other hand, I could be talking utter poop... as I havn't realy got a clue :tongue:

[Dan]

This system has been used by watch repairers and the like for ages and ages. In fact you can buy properly manufactured professional electrolysis tanks for removing rust from small parts. Tank electrolysis is not used much in cars for many reasons. Firstly that brake caliper you were talking about is yellow nickel plated (if it's a Mini one). If you do lift the rust off by electrolysis it will take the plating with it but normally the nickel will form a barrier between the rust and the electrolyte. Lot's of classic car parts are plated in this way.
Also most of the parts you generaly want to clean will be big and very rusty such as whole body shells or engine blocks. Obviously this is logistically complicated as you need a very big tank and a very large sacrificial electrode. And the amount of power consumed is directly proportional to the surface area of rust being reversed. If you were to get together a big enough tank for a whole shell it would take a lot of juice to keep the reaction going.
The finish is a bit dodgy as well, it's black.
It basically doesn't work well on a large scale. It's very hard to get the sacrificial electrode a constant distance from the workpiece (which turns out to be what you need when you get to large items) all around unless you make a custom electrode for each piece.
The process doesn't return missing metal so if you have say, a wing which is very rusted then as you take it out of the tank it is very likely to just fall apart in your hands. It will have become very thin and patchy and lost strength,leaving you with no idea what shape the panel was whereas if you were to go through it methodically cutting out and replacing steel you'd have more chance of saving the panel.
This process is however used in another form on cars all the time. This is how rust reversing paints such as Ku-Rust or Jenolite work. It's a chemical version of the same process and much easier to control as you can paint it right where you want it.

Edited by Dan, 25 November 2005 - 11:48 PM.

[Sprocket]

This process is called Phosphating and is used in industry all the time

here are other derusting methods http://www.team.net/...h/deruster.html