Electrolytic rust removal

FFS Heidi said:

But it doesn't taste as good as the Absinthe.

Click to expand...

Both taste bloody awfull if you drink them neat...

Shippers said:

Both taste bloody awfull if you drink them neat...

Click to expand...

You prefer the taste of EP90 then?

Wouldn’t it be easier to boil up some zinc and hot dip small parts once you’d cleaned em up. Shirley it can’t be dangerous with all these spare masks kicking about.

Tried white vinegar and baking soda before and leave it for 48 hours. Actually good results too.

I pulled out the kits tonight, just to see what I had bought a year or two ago, need to start thinking about setting the various tanks up now for my next project.
The kits I have are from a company called classic plating Classic Plating. Market leading supplier of DIY electro plating kits (classic-plating.co.uk) , I have the kits for zinc electroplating (both zinc and yellow passivitating) and the Electrolytic cleaning kits. I have obviously bought a pile of plastic buckets and also some of the recommended upgrades, a pump and stone, a heater and a power supply.
This should be everything bar water to produce a reasonable result although I haven't actually tried it yet.
I should be trying it all for the first time over the next week or two starting to clean up bolts and suchlike for my next motorcycle build and in the slightly longer term, on my 109 rebuild.

These are first into the chemical bath
When I sort all this lot out and mix up all the chemicals

Be interested to see how this goes, I started an attempt at nickel plating with the last bike I did, but got bored and went wire wheel and lacquer

Tested Neat white vinegar for a week might have worked sooner but needed a light wire brushing to get crap off pleasantly surprised

I tried the rust removal kit over the last few days but it didn't seem to work very well, I suspect my power supply may be a bit weak for this. To be fair its actually quicker and easier to just bead blast things but when I have time I'll have another go.
Tonight I made up all the chemicals and set op the kit for zinc plating, eventually I'll try yellow passivitating but just tried ordinary zinc first. I blasted the electrical frame from the Superdream I have just started rebuilding and then stuck it through the process. It isn't perfect but as a first attempt and something that will not be seen I am happy with it. I know how to improve the results, tonight was more just playing around with settings and positions.
Before and after pictures .

That’s looks impressive , I came across 5l of brick acid in the garage and been giving that a go on the wheel nuts and yesterday a 15” rusty Bahco adjustable that had seized , after about 2-3 hours all rust off and freed up

I use my rank all the time, when one batch comes out another one goes in.

Am I doing this wrong? I've had a couple of goes in the past at rust removal using vinegar but never seems to work for me.
So when I saw this thread I had another try, I had a plate with light surface rust so I stuck it in a jug of distilled white vinegar, after 24 hrs it looks no different.
Do I need to wait longer?

Yeah will need a bit longer, I did some motorbike footrests recently and they sat in it for about a week. Quick scrub off with a nail brush and water afterwards and they were like new.
But they did flash rust within an hour after that even though I left them on top of the rayburn to dry so be prepared to do something as soon as you get it cleaned off

Kev12 said:

Yeah will need a bit longer, I did some motorbike footrests recently and they sat in it for about a week. Quick scrub off with a nail brush and water afterwards and they were like new.
But they did flash rust within an hour after that even though I left them on top of the rayburn to dry so be prepared to do something as soon as you get it cleaned off

Click to expand...

OK I'd better give it a fair trial and see how it goes.
Best be ready with protection, I am interested in trying some Nickel plating and may try this as my first test.

If your in a hurry the brick acid available at builders merchants cleans it in hours and no need for wire brush, leave it too long and you can see pitting where it’s eating clean metal

steve2286w said:

If your in a hurry the brick acid available at builders merchants cleans it in hours and no need for wire brush, leave it too long and you can see pitting where it’s eating clean metal

Click to expand...

Oooo sounds a bit ferocious, probably best on heavier metal

timvega said:

Tried white vinegar and baking soda before and leave it for 48 hours. Actually good results too.

Click to expand...

I've used malt vinegar with good results, also Tesco's el-cheapo diet cola is good (has phosphoric acid in)

now I have a 45 gallon plastic drum with ~35 gallons of water & 2 gallons of 45% phosphoric acid, can dip cylinderblocks in it

Rich.