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I may be the only one who wondered whether or not something had to be added to increase the conductivity of the water but I wonder no more.

After cleaning up my tin snips and a couple of heavy duty swivel wheels, I dumped the solution and reestablished the setup with fresh water. There is some residual soda in the water as evidenced by a skim of bubbles but it is close enough to "clean water" for this experiment.

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One photo shows the current flow (about 75 milliamps) in water without soda.

The other shows the current flow (about 2.8 amps) in the same water with soda added.

dusty wrote:I may be the only one who wondered whether or not something had to be added to increase the conductivity of the water but I wonder no more.......

ATTA BOY dusty. Just gotta love an inquisitive mind!!! Thanks.

What kind of soda was used?

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This is the soda I am using now. I'm not yet convinced that this is what is being called for in the various articles. But....it seems to work.

dusty wrote:[ATTACH]8648[/ATTACH]

This is the soda I am using now. I'm not yet convinced that this is what is being called for in the various articles. But....it seems to work.

That's one of Arm and Hammers laundry soaps with activated baking soda added.

The Arm and Hammer washing soda (sodium carbonate) which is touted for use in electrolysis is sold as a laundry detergent booster, to be added to laundry soap. So what you probably have is a combo of the soap and the washing soda in one box.

This link shows all the Arm and Hammer washing products including the laundry soaps AND washing soda (show on the right in the first row).

Neat to see you found that it works. That's all that counts in this process. I wouldn't think that it would have anything in it that would have a negative effect on the base metal.

Hi,

Opened the battery charger this afternoon, looks like I need to store it better as it had quite a bit of dust inside. So it needed a bit of cleaning and figured I might as well fix the dented bottom while it was apart...

Age wise the nearest I can figure is that I got it new in 1971 at a Western gas station in Wausaw WI.

Now the pictures:
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Ed

Selenium diodes! Been a while since I have seen those!

You're amusing Dusty. All this work, studying the absolutely wrong soda solution. You've been told, over and over again in this thread, use wash soda, yet you absolutely refuse to use the correct soda.

Your results will not ever be as good as many others, because of that.

USE THE RIGHT SODA.

foxtrapper wrote:You're amusing Dusty. All this work, studying the absolutely wrong soda solution. You've been told, over and over again in this thread, use wash soda, yet you absolutely refuse to use the correct soda.

Your results will not ever be as good as many others, because of that.

USE THE RIGHT SODA.

I am glad that you are amused. At least some good, other than six rust free casters and three pair of tin snips, has come of this exercise in futility.

BUT...I did select the soda from the laundry detergent section at the grocery store and NOT from the baking section. Do I get credit for that much? I admit that the word WASHING does not appear on the box but that was true of all the other DETERGENTS on the shelf that day.

If I invest in the price of a box of Arm and Hammer Soda whose label contains the word WASH are you willing to guarantee better results.

Aah....but what constitutes better? Is it faster rust removal..or..more complete rust removal..or..worse smelling while working..or..MORE CURRENT FLOW while working..OR..is it just having the RIGHT SODA?:rolleyes::)

ADDED COMMENTS: For easy reference:

[quote="foxtrapper"]Dusty,[/quote]

Didn't you say you were using baking soda? That ain't the right soda and the process doesn't work nearly as well as it will with washing soda. Found in the laundry detergent areas of grocery stores.
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Don't fret over conductivity of the solution. That's right on par with pure water being an insulator, and contaminated water being a conductor. You're fretting over the tiny area between the two.[/quote]

I''m not an expert here (I didn't even stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night), but I don't think the solution is that picky to the type of soda. In fact, you could use SALT in the solution and have success at removing rust. The problem with salt is that it's also corrosive to the good metal and can generate a toxic chlorine gas.

From this site:

I used Arm and Hammer WASHING SODA -a common laundry detergent. I have also recently had success with Arm and Hammer Ultra Laundry Detergent. Main advantages here are; easy on your skin, NOT as corrosive to the part being cleaned if you happen to leave the part in the solution, no worse than typical soap if it gets in your eyes, AND it leaves a nice soapy smell in the room (at least my "lemon-fresh" variety does). Also, the soap effectively gets rid of the putrid smell of old gasoline and oil. (great for cleaning out old gas tanks). Other soaps and detergents work fairly well and I'll leave that for you to experiment with.

Products equivalent to washing soda. Washing soda is mostly sodium carbonate (also known as soda ash), Na2CO3, and is a sodium salt of carbonic acid. It is also available as pH+, a pool and spa water treatment to raise the pH of water (make it more alkaline).

I also wonder if the properties of the water effects the process? With other factors kept at a constant, would you see a difference using distilled water vs tap water? Hard water vs soft water? If so, would it be enough to fret over?

Personally, I think these variables - exact brand/type of soda, qualities of water, specifics of the electrical current - should only be fretted over if what you're cleaning/restoring is a very valuable or priceless artifact. Otherwise, it's all just personal preference and there's no reason not to experiment with tweaking some of the variables. So have at it, Dusty! Thanks for testing the current with and without the soda added and posting your results. I had been curious about that myself, but didn't take the time to experiment that much when I had my tank running.

One note on the quote you pulled in from that website. They stated that washing soda is a "common laundry detergent". It's advertised instead as a laundry detergent booster. You have to still use a separate detergent when used to wash clothes. This clarification isn't intended to discredit that website. It's a great reference.