Anyone have good luck using electrolysis to remove rust from wheels?

[MA1920]

Refrain from putting your hand/finger into the water while the current is turned on...it will bite you.....

I had my battery charger on something like 2-amps and that was when it bit me. After all, "all I was doing was rotating the pan"

Yeah. Turn the sucker off!!

How bad is the "bite" from a battery charger at a low setting, say 2-5 amps?

 

[joecdeere]

at that setting it's a tickle, my dog would argue that, she couldn't resist the foam in the bucket and had to put her nose against it
hasn't been near my cleaning since.

 

[MA1920]

One month later and spring is finally in sight. April has been cold and wet, rain every other day, some snow thrown in for good measure. At least it wasn't flooding rains, just cold, nuisance rain. On the positive, I guess a cold wet April is better than floods or an extended drought.

Back to the subject I inquired about so long ago. I'm going to try my hand at rust removal this weekend. I bought some washing soda and I came across some old brake rotors I was going to bring to the scrap yard. I think I'll start with the rotors as the sacrificial part of the equation. Updates to come this weekend.

 

[trctr155]

Only thing off the top of my head would be to start with clean sacrificial metal, it helps. Use a 4" grinder with a sanding disk(or whatever you've got) and quickly strip the brake rotor of rust. It will pull quicker to the bare metal.

 

[dragoneggs]

Only thing off the top of my head would be to start with clean sacrificial metal, it helps. Use a 4" grinder with a sanding disk(or whatever you've got) and quickly strip the brake rotor of rust. It will pull quicker to the bare metal.

yeah that should speed up the process.

 

[MA1920]

After a couple hours of grinding, the pics show my setup before water was added. It took a while to grind the rotors because I wanted as much clean metal as possible. The tractor wheel is just above the floor of the tank, and the 2 end rotors are as vertical as my son and I could get them. The rotor in the center is close to horizontal.

The rotors are connected to each other with bare #12 copper. We added water and washing soda, connected the battery charger on the 2amp setting. Bubbles started rising instantly. It was getting dark so we unplugged the charger for the night. I'll restart it in the morning and if everything's fine, let it run for a few days. I'll have to rotate the wheel because it isn't 100% submerged.

One question, during the short time it was running, why did the submerged copper turn blue? Is that to be expected? I didn't realize a couple of the pics were blurry. I'll do better tomorrow.

 

[joecdeere]

The copper will turn colors, and may get a crusty buildup from the soda, no big deal, you may have to scrape the buildup off the rotors as things progress if you see the reaction slowing down

 

[MA1920]

A few pics taken throughout the day. This question may be odd, but would there be more of a reaction the deeper the wheel is in the water?

 

[goeduck]

There would be more rust to remove but my guess is the limitation might be the anode, the bath and the available current. I would not rush it...

 

[dragoneggs]

A few pics taken throughout the day. This question may be odd, but would there be more of a reaction the deeper the wheel is in the water?

The depth of the water is not much of a factor. Placement of your anodes, current, and freshness of your bath are bigger drivers.