Here's my second attempt at electrolysis on an aluminum part. So far, my conclusion is it definitely makes the wire wheel brushing easier.
On the part I did today, I intentionally left a few inches out of the bath to be able to compare treated vs. untreated surfaces. I'll tell you what I did wrong later in this post.
Here's my setup. The procedure used was my modified version from this website. This photo is from the first piece I did. The solution in the bucket is the standard washing soda / water mix, concentration 1/2 cup per 5 gallons water. The anode (+) material is the piece of sheet metal. The cathode (-) material is the part with the steel threaded rod firmly attached to it.
.
.
.
.
.
This is the part I did today (table insert). It shows the top and bottom surface combined into one pic. It's a part that I needed to either repair with JB Weld or replace so I thought it would be a good guinea pig. It had a good amount of the white aluminum oxide corrosion on it.
.
.
.
.
The sheet metal is clamped to the bucket, the part is suspended inside the U shaped sheet metal, and the battery charger is connected, positive to the sheet metal and negative to the threaded rod holding the part. The charger is set on the lowest 2 amp trickle charge setting.
.
.
.
.
This shows the process 5 minutes after turning on the charger (see bottom display on the timer). Just seconds after I turned on the charger, there was a lot of activity in the solution. LOTS of small bubbles rising, indicating the process is working.
.
.
.
.
I would turn off the charger every 10 minutes and inspect the part to make sure that it wasn't pitting (the negative effect of over "cooking" aluminum). I would also try wiping the surface just to see what was going on. Nothing much started happening until about 40 minutes. A gray sludge began for form on the outside of the part. You can see it on the bottom part of the next picture. When wiped, you could start to see the base aluminum. The white corrosion (aluminum oxide) was going away.
.
.
.
.
continued in next post.




