Thread: Electrolysis (sort of...)

As I mentioned over on the Molasses 101 ( http://straightrazorpalace.com/works...ses-101-a.html ) thread I recently had a couple of extremely rusted blades arrive and figured that I'd give electrolysis a shot. I opted for a highly professional setup involving a drawer from a plastic storage unit, an old brake disc welded to a hunk of cold rolled steel rod, an old ac adapter wired into the remains of some AV cable I have had lying around for ages, water, washing soda, and several espresso.



My two victim razors:



And the whole shebang:



When I plugged it in, something clearly started to happen



And before long the water was nicely cloudy so I was pretty sure that something was in fact going on in there.



The problem is that about 45mins-1 hour into the process the whole thing ground to a halt. I don't really have the electrical patience to chase down the cause although I suspect I might have blown the AC adapter, so this is going to be the end of my electrolysis experiment (hence the 'sort of' in the thread title).

Here are the blades after:



There was definitely an improvement in that there is less rust now than there was before, but I think it would have taken several more hours to finish the job.

So to sum up, it was kind of fun to play around with but the whole process was scuppered my my own electrical incompetence. And frankly, I prefer the manual approach to rust removal.

Brilliant I love these kinds of home experiments, but like you say, I don't think this is the way I will approach rust removal, the buffer works very well

While I know that abrasives work, I've been wondering about using this method on a razor that's still in it's scales to remove the rust that can't be worked on without un-pinning. I don't have any right now, but I may just give it a go if I find one. I've also wondered about how it would help (if all) to get to the bottom of pitting that you don't want to sand or buff down through, such as saving an etching.

As I said, I'm just wondering!!

I suspect that it might work well on cleaning rust/gunk out of pitting as you mention, but I would be careful about plunking a whole (i.e. complete with scales) razor into the mix. I *suspect* some materials might be OK, but I'm sure that others would be damaged and/or destroyed by the process.

I know that I've read that it can be fatal for (some?) wood, so I would do some research on specific materials before trying it. If you find out more info, please let us know as I'd be curious as to which materials can/cannot survive the process.

Given my limited knowledge of electrolysis, I would expect that pins (particularly brass ones) would suffer more from the process than the rust would, if you put a complete razor in the solution.

Originally Posted by Havachat45

Given my limited knowledge of electrolysis, I would expect that pins (particularly brass ones) would suffer more from the process than the rust would, if you put a complete razor in the solution.

That's a very good point! I hadn't even considered the effect on the pins. Now I wish I had thrown in at least one of those two razors complete with pins and scales to see what would happen.

Originally Posted by Havachat45

Given my limited knowledge of electrolysis, I would expect that pins (particularly brass ones) would suffer more from the process than the rust would, if you put a complete razor in the solution.

as I said: "Just wondering)!

Originally Posted by cudarunner

While I know that abrasives work, I've been wondering about using this method on a razor that's still in it's scales to remove the rust that can't be worked on without un-pinning. I don't have any right now, but I may just give it a go if I find one. I've also wondered about how it would help (if all) to get to the bottom of pitting that you don't want to sand or buff down through, such as saving an etching.

As I said, I'm just wondering!!

No, doesnt work. I specifically tested that recently b/c it would be pretty useful.

I finished my testing of a little while back, I need to post what I've got on it.