The Power of Electrolysis | How To Transform Rusty Tools!

we can turn this into a perfectly usable hammer my hammer is fizzing god that's ferocious it's working really well [Music] [Applause] hi i'm dom and welcome to my workshop hello there i hope you're all doing well thank you so much first of all for joining me for another video i've had quite a few people message me on instagram over the years i've got this thing i've got this gate i've got this old tool i need to remove the rust how do i do it the honest answer is there isn't one way to do rust removal i mean there are various different ways different techniques and methods depending on what you're trying to remove the rust on so i thought i would just do a quick tutorial to explain electrolysis which is a fantastic process if you're not familiar with it prepare to have your mind blown this is gonna literally change everything it's awesome brilliant diy project that anyone can try at home it's really simple to do trust me you need barely any equipment it's really simple easy to get stuff it's not that dangerous you've got to be careful there is electricity involved in water but it's really not that dangerous it's okay i thought it would be really nice to just give you a real basic step-by-step description of how to do it a little disclaimer i am certainly not a scientist or a mathematician or anything else any other kind of qualifications that you would need to be a professional in doing any of this so i'm just going to show you the way that i do it it works for me and i hope it works for you as well i use it all the time and i think it's nice to share when things work well here's a classic example of the sorts of stuff i buy very regularly at boot sales and antiques fairs and auctions and things like that old rusty tools this is just junk it's just heavy rusty dirty junk but with a little bit of elbow grease and a bit of know-how this hammer for instance we can turn this into a perfectly usable hammer at the moment the head is completely rusty and that rusted surface is not ideal when you're working with some delicate things you want a nice polished fine surface electrolysis is going to be brilliant for this wait a second i'll show you how to do it now first things first all these bits are going to get a nice good clean [Music] this is just hot soapy water and all i'm doing is just trying to remove any grease or anything like that because you don't want anything to obstruct the electrical current grease and dirt or anything like that much of that you can remove the best they're looking better already okay tools are nice and clean start with the hot soaking water what is this electrolysis lock and how does it work first thing you're going to need is a plastic tub the most important thing is this needs to be plastic use a bucket an ice cream an ice cream tub anything plastic that doesn't conduct electricity that is probably the most important thing to remember [Music] okay sorry about that fill it with hot water you don't have to use hot water this is just something that i do like when you're cleaning anything it doesn't have to be hot but i think hot water works a bit better the next thing i'm going to add to my hot water is sodium carbonate now you can use various different things for this cleaning soda soda crystals things like that not baking soda from my experience baking soda is a very different product a soda crystals or cleaning soda is is what you want which is basically sodium carbonate which this is you can buy this it's really cheap i'm just going to sprinkle that in make sure you wear gloves with this stuff because it is a cleaner at the end of the day so it's just it can be irritating to your skin so just put some gloves on and i find the more of that you put in the more conductive the water gets so the easier it is for the electrical current to pass through it [Music] there probably is a ratio for how much of this stuff to put in there to how much water i don't know it i just kind of go by eye it gets to a point where it stops dissolving into the water that's it that's about enough i'm going to give that a good stir up let that dissolve whilst that is all dissolving in there let's talk about electricity we need to make a circuit the next thing is 12 volt car battery charger and you need to make sure you just got the most bog standard simple battery charger you can find you just want something that you can plug in the wall turn it on positive and negative really simple basic as a car so we've got a tub that doesn't conduct electricity in our water that does we now need to link positive to the negative via our rusty hammer and something else we are going to connect the rusty hammer to the negative that would be the cathode the positive is going to become the anode the electrical current is going to force its way out off of there and conduct itself to the positive to the ammo and it's not abrasive you're not sanding down or sand blasting or actually removing any of the metal like this file or this little teeth all this serrated edge that will stay there all it's going to do is pull the rust away from it and leave me with some nice clean metal the anodes or the positive side are going to attract all of the rust these are just pieces of steel you literally can use anything made of steel for these but they are sacrificial so don't use anything that you want to keep anything that is precious to you the rust from the tool from the part that you're trying to remove the rust from will be drawn to these and that's why these look so rough now because i've been i've used them before and during the electrolysis process these end up really rusty and eventually would just get eaten away completely these need to be as clean as possible so i'm going to give these a hit with the angle grinder just to remove any of this surface rust [Music] four nice clean pieces of steel time to get them in the solution see i've just got these cable ties again not conducting electricity they're plastic they're going to hold them against the edges depending on your setup you can use different shape anodes if you're using something around like a bucket and you want to submerge that to it remove the rust on that the anode could be something like an old can because it's round it would fit perfectly around there and the whole idea is to try and keep the positive side of the anode as close to the part that you're trying to clean as possible the process is the same you can adapt it for how well however you want to do it you can have just one anode with a positive and you could go straight onto it that would work perfectly fine i've got four but only one terminal so i somehow need to link these together i've got these wires and this all that's doing is linking the four anodes together there you go and then positive terminal from the battery charger goes onto the first one so it kind of power comes in here through to that one round to that one and then to that one then it's looking for somewhere and then it finds the cathode the negative side now because the plastic tub does not conduct electricity i can just clamp that to the side it's just somewhere to hold it and then another little wire i'm only using these bits of wire so i don't have to put my battery charging terminals in the water they'll get rusty and everything like that if you keep your battery charger terminals out of the solution they won't get damaged then that is going to be connected like that straight to the hammer have a bit of a breather it's really simple so far you can you can't say that there's anything that's too taxing i mean you can find the cleaning soda crystals the copper sodium sodium carbonate is what i've used the whole setup is a battery charger a tub and a few wires a few bits of old steel you could do it on a much smaller scale if it's something that's really small that you're trying to work on you don't need a big massive target all of this stuff the you know the four anodes you could do it with just one it would work just as well i could turn that on now and it would start working and start doing its magic but whilst i've got such a big tank and i've got this whole thing set up i'm going to show you a little sort of helpful tip to maximize productivity with some other little crop clips and bits of wire because i've got my negative terminal there i can just extend it from there and bring and just join another wire out there and clip it onto another part and then dump that in the sauce as well when you're positioning these parts in the solution please wear gloves it's really important to wear gloves don't try not to get this stuff on your hands the power is absolutely off at the moment as well so that's a really good really good tip to avoid electrocution try and keep the parts that you're trying to get clean as close as possible to the anodes without touching it the further away you pull it the harder it is for the actual process to work so that you're doing it a favor by keeping it as close as you can to it the wooden handle i'm not having to remove the wooden handle from the hammer because really it's it's not going to damage the wood the wood doesn't conduct electricity all it's doing is sitting in some warm cleaning water which is absolutely fine need to clean anyway if you've got quite a long piece like that you can sometimes i find it helps to put one at each end i'm probably complicating things here it really is simple just connect the neutral to one side of the part and that would work just fine you need to make sure the actual part the thing that you're trying to clean is completely submerged under the water and keep it as close as possible to the anodes ready should i turn it on here we go [Music] look instantly look at that look my hammer is fizzing the file is in there bubbling away oh that's ferocious it's working really well on this charger i've got a little gauge so i can tell how many amps it's actually drawing tell me what current is passing through as you leave it overnight or a good few hours the anodes this or sacrificial positive side that get the rust the rust gets drawn to they become less effective because the current can't pass through the rust and they end up work get working worse and worse so you may have to stop after a good few hours turn it off most importantly turn the power off give those a good scrub back and give them a good clean again and then start the process again and you'll find that it fizzes up and bubbles up a lot more ferociously at the start it's because they start to get a little bit less effective as you go through the process and you know what the best thing about this process is i can leave that now sitting over there you'll need to leave it for a good few hours so i can go off now make some lunch get on with something else and carry on in the workshop doing other things that is going to be fizzing away and bubbling away over there removing all the rust brilliant isn't it yeah well that's it now i'll leave that for a few hours go make myself some lunch and i'll catch up with you in a bit it has been maybe three hours since i put these in so probably not long enough but i can't wait any longer should we have a look and see what this stuff looks like see all those little brown flakes and chunks of stuck all over that look there's wall there's a couple floating around there all those bits have come off of our rusty parts look at that fizzing away it's working so well it's looking really good the water's looking disgusting and murky i'm gonna turn it off and have a look and see what it looks like [Music] is the wood has come up really nice actually right oh look at that literally three hours no work at all i've just left this scene here bubbling away isn't that incredible don't even need sandpaper or scotch brite or anything this black kind of coating that comes off in my hand but look at that you know buffing afterwards or why brushing what does it say white house i think that's a nice hat some nice hammer [Music] how cool is that there's not a spot of rust on it there's a little bit on the end there i'm not sure if that's rust although it looks like blobs of solder or something i'm not sure but that will come off i've actually now got something i can definitely use so right that's one good thing this needs a bit longer the rust was quite bad up this end [Music] look at that again you can see the makers mark there usa that's mad isn't that incredible it needs a little bit longer in an ideal world that is brilliant isn't it absolutely brilliant now this i didn't really need long enough yeah that needs a bit more so you can see there is still some rust on that so that's not worked perfectly because the rust was worse on this part and i didn't leave it in there for long enough it's actually taken off a lot of it look this hammer has come out the best for sure and i'm probably more excited about actually being able to use this because it's quite a nice little hammer quite useful for a lot of little things i think i'm going to clean this up dry it off probably give it a tiny little buff on the wire wheel and i'll show you how much that's going to transform it isn't that awesome and you don't need to buff it you could get the same result by scrubbing it with one of these it takes a bit more time but the same result look at that nice polish then that all that mess has come off the end it's actually a really nice hammer look i gave the file a bit of a tickle on the wire wheel and that even came up really quite nice but that's not bad is it cool can't leave that handle looking like that it's come out really nice and clean all the grease and stuff has gone from the soapy water and the warm water but i'm just gonna give it a quick oil that's gonna finish it off nicely [Music] there you go very simple one fully restored hammer i really hope this helps save some of those old tools that you've all got out there in your sheds and your back gardens have a look around try and find all these rusty old tools get them out and save them i really hope you've enjoyed this video it's been really good fun leave me some comments below if there's anything else you'd like me to show you how to do any more videos like this that you want to see if you're stuck with projects or something like that i'd happily do a tutorial and show you the way that i do these things i hope you've enjoyed it thank you so much take care [Music] you

Channel: Dominic Chinea

Views: 580,843

Rating: 4.9050064 out of 5

Keywords: dominic, chinea, dom, repair, shop, workshop, metal, rust, electrolysis

Id: V-prcdrvb_E

Length: 16min 40sec (1000 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 21 2021