I confess. I am sick and tired of busting my butt wirebrushing cast iron while it accumulates faster than I can possible deal with it.
Electrolysis is, I know this, the answer. But I have torn the bottom out, collapsed, cracked, and otherwise dismembered and devaluated several plastic containers trying to do large cast parts. I mean who stores cold chisels in a condom??
Endlessly have I awaited news from the Potts of burning New Jersey for word of the plastic stock tank trials. Now I find they are spending their time trying to grow things! Heavens! I have to beat the forest back with a machete to get to my shop and they want to 'grow' things; just because they're edible doesn't make it right.
Today, sick and tired of grit I plunged and put down a hunnert bucks on a 142 gallon, 2'x6'x2' stock tank. I am tired of plastic. It was just one of those ideas that didn't pan out, like the 8 track, and Tom and Nicole.
Castigate me. Call me a fool. Send me offers for T.V. dishes and credit cards - I don't care. I bought a galvanized tank. Maybe all of the greater, and lesser, metropolitan Auburn area will suffer some catastrophic meltdown, but I had to try it.
The stainless steel plates are set in 2x2's so that they should never contact the tank. The problem with them contacting the tank is that the tank would then become another plate and be very quickly eaten alive. Or, the tank would short the charger if the tank contacted both poles.
The plates are suspended so that the contact points, where they are drilled and the copper 10 ga. wires bolted in, remain above the water line and won't become part of the plate and dissolve. The stainless plates themselves, 1/8" thick, have never shown any erosion.
The tank itself you can see is off the ground on scrap 2x6's.
On the left is just a closeup of one plate. I can move them all over the tank this way. I have 2 very large pieces of 226 in the bottom now. The are on boards so that they, too, do not contact the tank.
I have used 10 ga. wire thruout. The colors of the wires corresponds with the charger; red+ /black-; this avoids confusion.
I need to get the wiring in better order, maybe even with a switch. I have always just plugged and unplugged the charger, but a switch sounds rather classy.
Oh, I have tried various solutions and the one that is the best, so far, is powdered dishwasher soap. I like my solutions SATURATED. There are 13 pounds of powder in this tank. Hey, only cost $ 6.50.
So, all that stuff you've been meaning to send to Johnny0, and just haven't gotten to yet... Send it to me first and I'll just clean it up for him.
Anodes get very dirty, not just eaten up. The cleaner you keep them the better the process works. Your hand or a vegetable brush are all you need to knock the gunk off - unless you are using a lye soln.
Rust is incredibly invasive. Pitting occurs because the rust has gone down into the metal, burrowing and boring. Rust lies hidden beneath!
I liken electrolysis to the use of maggots in a festering wound - not as gross as it sounds. Maggots eat only necrotic flesh; they leave the new healing, granular tissue alone. (Should you be out hunting, shoot yourself in the foot, be stranded a few days, and notice maggots in the wound, don't freak; thank you higher power that these little fellows arrived to save your pinkies) Electrolysis only easts rust. Leave a part in the tank overly long and it is not harmed. There is no cut-off point where derusting stops and decastironing begins. Not to fret. But the process is eating into tunnels and voids below the surface. What does this mean? It means once you get that part into the air it is going to rust again faster than a speeding train.
As soon as I pull a part I get a torch on it pronto to get all that water out of there. Dry a part with a rag, hit it with the torch, and watch pools of water form as it comes to the surface. You are not just heating the water, you are heating the iron to force the water out. Take you time and get it dry.
Here is the enclosed underside of the piece above. There is rust on there that 85 hours in the tank at 5 amps didn't get. The solution wasn't able to circulate there due to the way I set the part in.
Another view of the same piece shows a crack in a dovetail way. Cleaned up I can see just where I need to grind out. The small chip tells me maybe this wasn't a stress fracture, but a dropped piece.
And left is the other piece from this tank: the table. All of the pieces I am doing are getting the same steps. Scraping off gunk. Washdown with Zip Purple, and the tank. After drying it is obvious that
there is still surface rust present. I doubt that you can dry a piece fast enough to avoid this, especially a larger piece. You can also see bits of paint between the bars. The paint in here was very heavy and looked to be a mess to remove. What hasn't been removed in the tank has now been pretty well separated from the metal by the torch.
I spend an hour with a putty knife and several wire brushes and the table is as good as it will get. Nit-pickers may disagree - the bondo and bunghole auger boyz. I trust in good primer to seal it all up real good once everything remotedly loose is knocked, cooked and brushed off.
An hour later it maybed doesn't look a lot better, There is still surface rust that just seems eternal. But all the loose stuff is gone. The primer will have a good base. If you are wondering where the black oxide that is on a piece coming out of the tank went, I simple scrubbed the parts in the tank, with the charged unplugged, with a nylon brush. Some neat little wire brushes of various shapes can be picked up at welding supply shops. Great in nooks and crannies. Stainless steel bristles are preferred. .
Below is the bottom of the table after that additional hour of scraping and brushing. Some rust is still obvious. Maybe a few more days in the tank were called for. In my mind this piece is ready to prime. What doesn't get primed, the machined surfaces, dovetail ways and table top, will get a coat of butchers wax.
My major caveat here is that I do believe the tank must be insulated from all electrical activity. It appears to me that the table slipped off its boards and came into contact with the tank. In that area the tank is eroded somewhat. While a breaching isn't in the offing I wouldn't want to do this very often. Portions of the tank nearest the piece touching the tank are the worst affected. Boards in the bottom of the tank are unreliable supports. I will put bricks, or concrete pavers into the tank bottom before the next load. Other wise I am please. I got parts done that plastic would not have supported. This is good.
I have been using this tank for a few weeks now and have a couple of conclusions. One is that the incredible buildup on my anodes was due to the process taking the galvanize hot dip off the tank, as well as removing rust from parts, and transferring all this stuff to the plates. You can see that the dip is removed in the area where the process takes place, between the anode plates; each side of the tank is equally eaten. Subsequently that area rusts. I will be interested to see if the process will now remove the rust that has accumulated while the tank sat empty. I don't actually know if removal of the dip took place only when I had parts in contact with the metal tank, or continued after I put in a layer of bricks and pavers. That is how I am operating it now; the bottom lined and no parts touch the tank. I get the feeling from looking at my anodes that the process continues to remove dip.
So, while this is a decent way to work large and heavy objects that would crush or puncture a plastic tank, it is not ideal. I am thinking that maybe a bathtub would work better, and be a lot cheaper.
Using the generic diswashing machine powdered soap for my solution has proven effective. I believe it may also help remove grease that is left on the parts, so that the electrolysis can get to the metal beneath.
That's about it, until I get the super battery charger that will put 30 amps thru my parts.
