Electrolysis Everyone should try this. DIY.

well done!!! surely this should be a sticky!!!!

 

De-rust it bare, then plate it.

I zinc plate all of my steel parts on the trans rebuilds. I had a plating page on the old DIY site, but it isn't up on my site now, but it showed zinc plating a release arm on the trans.

Once zinc plated you can chromate dip it, which dyes it, but also adds further protection. It is like a protective layer for the protective (sacrificial) zinc layer. They have yellow and green that I am aware of, probably more. The yellow makes it look like the cadmium coated parts of the MK2 cars, and then the green is the new style cad coating car mfg.'s use which is safer (nobody uses cadmium anymore for plating) and they look like the olive drab green bolts found on the newer cars.

I sand blast everything, then plate it, but as long as you let the electrolysis work and remove the rust, it should plate to it.

Trisodium Phosphate (TSP) is a common driveway or concrete cleaner, it is basically a soap, it can be added to the water to act as a conductive solution as well. Anything that'll pass electricity should do the trick, some work better than others.

Too much current and you can burn the parts, they look like crap after being plated if you rush it and crank the juice.

When I was building superconductors, we experimented with anodizing niobium and titanium and tantalum... titanium is a reactive metal, so it plates in different colors according to the voltage... it is some neat stuff and looks really nice... but I am babbling.

Maybe I'll take more pics the next time I plate something, make a page for it. I'm using a kit I bought now, instead of my own solution and chemicals, I just buy them from one place.

 

Having a stab at this myself now on a rusty old bumper iron, it seems to be working well so far, I'll report back with some pictures in a bit.

 

oh it works all right,this is one i did
then i ku rust them and they look great


here are some others ive finished

 

Nice one - any issues with eating away at the threads, or were they undamaged? I soaked some vauxhall caliper brackets in vinegar for a couple of weeks, and it cleaned them up, and removed half the threads where the caliper bolts on

I've gone off the 'chip shop challenge' technique since then. I'll probably try this now.

 

The beaty of this method is it doesn't remove any more material, only the really flaky stuff, some of the rust is actually turned back into iron so no it won't damage threads like an acid bath can. If the threads are already rusted to feck though it won't repair them


I can't believe how effective it is,

I started out with this


I didn't clean it other than to make a contact patch for the jump lead I used to connect it to the supply (I didn't even remove the leftover paint)
This is what I ended up with:



I left it in the solution for about 2 hours, then 5 minutes with a wire brush on the end of a drill and finished. Its so easy I will be treating everything I can fit into a tub like this!!!

 

no probs at all mike,i left the pistons in with seals,bleed nipple and put an old bit of flexi pipe in there too so nothing went inside,ill email you a few more pics later

 

a few more
before


after,and was wire brushed


and the 2 coats of ku rust


ready to paint with whatever now
its an amazing process and effortless

 

Awesome,

How far did the copper plating go? Any after pics?

 

can i use caustic soda as i can get alot of that ??

 

would this work on some wheel bolts from some split rims?

 

I've never had a problem with the chipshop method. Neither has my brother when he did his VX brakes..

not really sure you needed to do it for a couple of weeks though most i've done is five day and i've found that to be long enough to shift the most stubborn of rust

 

They were really bad - from a mate's car that was stood in his drive for years. I'm assuming the vinegar ate the threads away, but to be honest, I didn't check them beforehand.

 

not sure but soda christals are about a quid,and you dont use much

that rear caliper in my pic above ,i put it in the solution around 9am,about 2pm i gave it ist 1st wire brush,dipped it again till 6pm then dry it off and used wire brush on a drill,then it comes up nice like the 2nd pic of the front caliper

 

How long did it take to do the full brake/hub setup?

 

the hubs wernt as bad as the calipers,and alot of the rust came off with a wire brush before they were dipped,about half a day,carriers about half a day,rear hubs again half a day,calipers were the longest,i did some radiator mounting brackets,the ones that hold it in from the top,less than an hour
i think alot depends on how big the (not sure what you call it) the collector i.e the metal you use with the red cable,i used a brake disc,which is in volume probably the same as a caliper,whereas the bracket and carries are much smaller

 

It works by line of sight as well so if your anode (positive ie brake disc) is facing one side of the caliper it will take a lot longer to do the other side unless you turn it round.

A good way of solving this is to line your bucket with steel on all sides, making sure they are all connected so the current flows between them, and hang your cathode (the thing you want to clean) in the middle so it's surrounded on all sides

 

when i get round to it ill try smudge's idea with the copper pipe all the way round the bowl for the anode,i just havent got anything rusty to try now,apart from my car [:^(]

 

I Used our new fangled recycle wheelie bins, there a good size for wishbones, I did 2 wishbones with 1 big brake disk and left it in for 24 hours, they came out like new.

 

another link

http://www.1bad6t.com/rust_removal.html