For some reason, I seem to be collecting a whole lotta rusty old tractor parts… And I don’t have a big enough compressor to run a blaster.. So for some time, I’ve been thinking about an electrolysis tank, something like what was posted on MTF a couple years back…Well, imagine my surprise when LTGal was very KEEN on me putting together something like that! Little did I know that SHE wants to de-rust some old cast iron frying pans! So, after reading up on the setup here, I decided I’ve got enough bits and pieces lying around that I should try this out…
Here’s the tub I’m going to try it with:
Here’s my anodes and my long cathode (leftover pieces of the 1/4″ flat stock from my barn door project).
Now, I DON’T have a welder (well, I DO, but I don’t know how to run it, nor do I have a 20 amp outlet to plug it into) so instead I drilled holes in the stock and put bolts through, that I’m going to use 12 gauge ring connectors on
Strap the anodes to the sides, fairly far down so there’s no chance they’ll bash against the cathode.
12 gauge wire from each anode and the cathode,
trunk all the anode wires together on a bolt to connect to the positive lead of my battery charger
Next step (for tomorrow night, because its too lat tonight), take all the chunks of flat stock and bolts out and hit them with the wire wheel on the grinder to clean them up (I think the flat stock has some paint on it…) for good conductivity…
So we’ll see how it goes, for a first quick attempt. I wonder if:
- Perhaps my tank is too big for something to start off with..
- I actually have enough anodes to do real line of site
- the 12 gauge wire is going to be substantial enough (except that my battery charger does’t have anything bigger than that, I’m fairly sure…