Thread: Anyone try electrolytic rust removal?

I have a 2 big W&B blades from a bay buy that are perfectly shaped still but seriously covered in rust. The scales are both bone - but trashed - so I want to rescale them both and get the blades cleaned up. My first complete overhaul. I'd normally go at them with a light touch with a wire or synthetic brush wheel on the Dremel and if that doesn't work, then use slightly more abrasive wheels. But on a fluke yesterday I went Googling for other methods and stumbled across the electrolytic technique.

Trying to match the instructions what I did was get the blade connected to negative post of a 9 volt battery and a few nails to the positive (surrounding the blade), in water with baking soda. I tried it on the worst blade and immediately the hydrogen gas started rising, and after about an hour all the rust was floating on the top with some dirt on the bottom - but it left a lot of black deposit (as expected) which I've been removing by a long soak in lemon juice for the last 12 hours.

My question is does this process damage the integrity of the blade at all (i.e., make the edge brittle?) and is this a good way to remove rust? It sure has been easy so far and without removing any underlying metal that I can tell. If this is a good way to go, I'll rig up a container that's all set to surround a blade with metal as well as with pre-connected electrical leads to a battery. It's way more clean and less damaging than a wire or abrasive from what I can tell.