Removing Rust with Electrolysis

George Vondriska

Duration: 3 mins

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Description

Whether you’re restoring old tools or have a few that have seen better days, knowing how to deal with rust is essential. In this video, George Vondriska shows you an interesting and effective technique for removing surface rust from your woodworking tools. Click here to view the article mentioned in this video: Removing Rust with Electrolysis.

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5 Responses to “Removing Rust with Electrolysis”

Bill October 25th, 2021

A much simpler and quicker method for removing rust from a metal object is to soak it in Evapo-Rust. The metal will come out looking like new.
bobbg February 15th, 2018

Look at the webpage and read the safety. Doing this inside might not be a good idea and keep far away from Sparks or flames.
Robert Gearon February 15th, 2018

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/andyspatch/rust.htm
Robert Gearon February 15th, 2018

If you use Electrolysis to remove rust and this is strongly recommended, Do it outside, the reason is your breakin down water into its basic elements that's what the bubbles are so your busting the atoms of water into Hydrogen and oxygen ones a explosive gas the other is a gas that helps flames burn. If you do this in an enclosed space near an open flame it could burst into flame or flash over. Also you should not be breathing hydrogen and too much oxygen will make you pass out. This should only be done outside. **Caution** Hydrogen gas reacts explosively with oxygen (in the presence of heat) to produce water vapor. Take Michael Sullivan's advise seriously about shutting down the power before adjusting/removing the electrodes. If you are using electrolysis to remove rust...and have a considerable broth of bubbles...be very cautious. That broth is not the place to discard a glowing cigarette ember, lit match...or any other spark. Be warned...!! http://www.rickswoodshopcreations.com/miscellaneous/rust_removal.htm Read safety first. http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/andyspatch/rust.htm Doing this inside a wood shop might not be the best idea.
Roger January 9th, 2016

I have several steel wire fan covers removed from an old cooler. I've tried using the electrolysis method you've described in a 30 gal. plastic container and after 48 hours still have rust and paint on the steel. Is the size of my container an issue? Do i need more than 2 amp from my charger? Any help will be appreciated.

This plane is really a mess, just covered with surface rust. The answer to this is electrolysis. It's a pretty easy way to remove surface rust from tools. For the complete recipe on this whole thing here's what you need to do. Go to the WWGOA, Woodworkers Guild of America website and search for the story "Removing rust with electrolysis." The recipe is in there, the precise how-to on everything that I'm about to do here, completely walk you through the process. So you can try this in your shop. I'm gonna get this plane cooking, and then we'll let it sit for a while and have a look at the results. I got everything hooked up. Sheba helped me and it's already cooking away. It's literally only been minutes that a body of the plane has been down in there and things are bubbling away. I'm gonna leave this sit for probably 12 or 15 hours and then I'll come back and show you the results. Now again, complete recipe for this on the WWGOA website. And one of the things that's really great about this process is that I'm not abrading the plane at all. We're just using the electrolysis to remove the rust. So as a result, I'm not gonna leave any scratch marks, I'm not really gonna remove any metal. You'll see that when the body of the plane comes out of here, but let me show you from here just how I know it is that something's happening. Well there I've got the set up cooking and the battery charger has only been plugged in for moments here, and you can see the reaction happening. There's bubbles coming off of that plane body down there in the solution. In just minutes that water's gonna be so foggy you're not gonna be able to see anymore. So, capturing it now and then in a little bit, we'll see, well, overnight have a look at just how far along that plane body has come. Well, it's been about 18 hours and this baby's been in here cooking. Looking down into this bucket, icky, the top of this water, the electrolyte solution is covered with all sorts of schmootz. And that's a good thing because that is all of the oxide that has rolled off of that tool. So I'm really anxious to get this pulled out of here. Really important, gotta disconnect the battery charger first, unplug it from the wall, take the leads off of here. And then we can take this out of here and look at just what the plane itself looks like. Everything's disconnected. Lift this out of here and that's what we've got now. I don't wanna touch it yet. I'm gonna put some rubber gloves on. But really it doesn't look too bad. So, pretty good process. Pretty good way to clean rust off of tools, very little work on my part to make this happen. And boy does that plane body look great. So just to refresh your memory, this is our after shot. After about 18 hours in the electrolysis vat and our before shot before any work was done, a lot of surface rust. So electrolysis is a pretty easy process. Something you can also do in your shop.

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