A quick question about electrolysis...

[flyingvranch]

I have set up a bucket for electrolysis cleaning some iron relics. I am using a 2 amp 12VDC battery charger and water with baking soda. Everything appears to be working and bubbling. My problem is that the wire is doing all of the bubbling and not the iron part. I made sure to file a clean spot on the relic to make a good electrical connection also. After 4 hours a small bit of scale came off the relic but very little. The hanging wire is nearly dissolved where it goes into the water. The relic is an iron harness buckle that weighs about 1lb.

What type of hanging wire works the best? Currently I am using a piece of soft solid core picture hanging wire that appears to be zinc coated maybe? Any advice would be much appreciated!

 

[Tinhorn3]

is the 12v charger type that can shutdown? hope not (does it get hot?)
Do you put Negative to the relic?
I just use copper wire, like house wire, make it has good connections [DO NOT USE STAINLESS STEEL]
I can let the relic set the bottom
I also use washing soda
also I make the iron junk part as big as the relic

Something big relic can take a day or to knock off the rust
I use flat-black Rust-Oleum spray paint when it drys

 

[Flying V Ranch]

Thanks for the tips! The charger is the old type with a big transformer that gets hotter than Hades so no shutdown problems. I am running 12VDC at around 2 amps current. For the anode I am using a piece of rebar. Negative lead is on the relic wire. I will try #10 copper wire tomorrow for a hanger wire and see if that helps.

 

[Fredneck]

plastic coated wire with alligator clamp works best for me, and you can crank up the amps.

 

[Flying V Ranch]

I ended up using a larger copper wire to hang the part on. It still just fizzed from the wire only but eventually after enough good metal was exposed on the relic, everything started fizzing and the part is mostly clean after 3 days.

 

[Boones]

Hi...not sure if this will help, but like Tinhorn said, you want washing soda which is sodium carbonate. If you're really using baking soda, like you said in your post....that's sodium bicarbonate. These are not the same thing....you want the washing soda. I found that it's not easy to find, although you can 'make it' from baking soda, by heating it in the oven.....check out YouTube.