Electrolysis cleaning questions

[misipirelichtr]

For those of you that use electrolysis to clean shells and iron relics, what amperage and caustic do you prefer?  If your shell is cleaning properly(bubbles coming off,etc) and you come back in an hour or two and in that time, the cleaning process has stopped, any idea what is wrong?  Thanks in advance.

[CarlS]

Unfortunately, as with most things there is no one answer.  For iron that is in good shape and not impregnated with salts, it largely doesn't matter what amperage you run it at.  Electrolysis won't hurt good iron.  But it will remove the graphitized surface if allowed to and hurt or ruin the looks of the object.  So it's always best to run it on low amperage even if it takes a bit longer to run the item.  I normally run mine at 1/2 AMP and use a auto light bulb in the circuit to cut the voltage.  You can get good DC power supplies that allow you to set the voltage low without having to rig the circuit with a bulb as I do.

Regarding it having stopped working, I'm not sure how that could happen unless you lost an electrical connection somewhere.  I normally drill and tap a small hole to use a screw to attach the wire so I'm assured of a good connection.  What can also happen is that it can be running at such a high amperage that it causes an overload on your power supply and it trips.  Some battery chargers will trip, stay off a while to cool and then come back on.  Those are the only two things I can think of offhand.

A side note is that electrolysis is often used for two things:  cleaning and salt removal.  Of course you could say there is only one thing being done and you are cleaning the shell of it's salts but one is more visual than the other and it's important to approach them differently.  Salts have to be removed slowly and high amperage doesn't really help.  There is no quick fix.

[misipirelichtr]

I believe you have nailed my problem - too much amperage.  I believe i had a good connection as i had a tapped screw in the drill hole.  Your suggestions are very good ones  - thanks

[emike123]

If you think thats the issue and toning down the amperage doesn't work, you still have too good a connection so put the relic further from the waste iron piece.

[CarlS]

Very good point from eMike that I overlooked on the proximity.  The relic can't touch the anode but it also can't be too close to it or there is not enough resistancein the current flow.  For this reason and the ability to do bigger objects, generally speaking the bigger the tank the better.   For those interested, we have a link on our main page:
      http://www.bulletandshell.com
to a nice page about electrolysis on Barry Bank's Civil War Outpost site:
       http://www.civilwaroutpost.com/6.html

You also asked about the caustic used.  I used to use Red Devil Lye like most everyone back in the day but now use pool PH adjuster which is not caustic and works well.  It's relatively inexpensive too.

[misipirelichtr]

Carl and Mike - thank you both for the additional input.  I've read quite a few "how tos" on electrolysis, including the one you have posted, the one in the Dickey and George reference work, and the one on Mr. Ridgeway's site, but I don't ever recall reading about the proximity of the relic and the waste iron piece.  The reason I asked the question was that, while I've cleaned a fair number of shells over the years, I recently was trying to clean the lower half of a Reed, and the process just "cut off" as I indicated above.  I had switched from lye to baking soda, and that was the reason for that part of the question as well.  Now to confess up - I normally use a five gallon plastic bucket, but this time I used a much smaller plastic tub.  I was running more than a half amp current as well.  So, I may have been "overcharging", but now I bet I had the scrap iron and the shell too close together.  They were not touching, but were close and in a small tub.  Thank you both for taking time to share your expertise.

[emike123]

Jimmy:

That lesson came to me at the expense of 1 battery charger and 1 brake job.  I had an old beater which I, in hindsight wrongly, suspected to be the problem when mine kept cutting off too.  At that time Carl was not as helpful as we've trained him to become now and all he would say was, "get a power supply."  Being too frugal to listen to good advice, I went out to an auto parts store and bought another charger (much cheaper), got home and it cut off just like the one I had tossed out that was now in a landfill someplace.  I was cursing myself for not having bought a "power supply" when, I think it was Dom Pedro, told me what was wrong and to space my stuff out better.  I still have my cheap auto parts battery charger and it works fine. 

The brake job the PEP Boys guys did while I bought the charger was awful though, and so overall I would've saved a lot of money listening to Carl and having ordered a "power supply."

[scottfromgeorgia]

I have a a car battery charger I was planning to use. What the heck is a "power supply"?

[CarlS]

A power supply is a device that supplies power.   

In this case it's a device that takes the 110V power in your house and converts it to low amperage and voltage DC power.  Some have rheostats on them so you can adjust the amps.  A battery charger is really just a power supply but it's designed around the needs for the automotive and tractor industry hence the 6-volt and 12-volt settings and typically runs at much higher amperage than you need.  You can adjust the amperage with distance and resistance (light bulb).  What's gotten bad about them in recent years is they have overload protection circuitry on them which is why they cut off if certain limits are reached such as when the relic is too close to the anode.  That said I still use an old battery charger that I've been using for over 20 years.   If it ever breaks I'll get a nice power supply but if it ain't broke.....

[misipirelichtr]

Just to report back - got a low amp charger and a larger plastic bucket, and the electrolysis projects are back on track.  Working great.  And Carl, the ph Pool Adjuster has now become my caustic of choice.  Thanks again for the tips.