Using Electolysis for Paint/Grease Removal

[davbell22602]

I emailed a guy who's site had info on doing the Electolysis on paint and grease removal along with rust.

Here's what he said in response

The process is the same to remove anything from the surface of metal, i.e, rust, paint, thick grease and oil, and light plating like zinc.
I have successfully removed baked enamel paint from a car part. If the paint is mostly in good shape (no pits or cracks), the paint will begin to bubble and peel starting from the outer edges. If there are any tiny pits, chips or cracks in the paint, the paint may also peel starting from those areas as well....essentially anywhere the bare metal is accessible.
This process works by removing a microscopic layer of base metal relatively evenly, which un-bonds the paint from the base. The paint layer, in a short time, may peel off in sheets at a time, primer and all. The remaining metal will be clean of rust oil or paint. If some areas have rusty spots with pitting, a longer bath may be required with a regular scrub with a bristle brush to get the rust out of the pits. There is no sandblasting method that will do a better job.
When the paint and rust are gone, the base will be bare steel and therefore prone to flash rusting so dry it quickly to stop the surface rust from restarting.

Slower is better, trying to do this too quickly ( too much current) will cause pitting of the surface metal. Let me know how this works out for you.

Here's his site

http://users.eastlink.ca/~pspencer/nsaeta/electrolysis.html

 

[davbell22602]

He sent me another email in reference to doing engine blocks and manifolds.

I guess I hadn't mentioned the ability to remove baked-on carbon deposits from engine blocks and manifolds. If you are working with heavy cast iron (as a few users have used it to clean car-truck-tractor engine blocks), crank up the current. The castings are usually a bit rough any way and a bit of pitting would never be noticed. When I cleaned my antique make-n-break marine engine, it was in the bath for days at a time...lifting it out often for a scrub on the outside and using a round wire brush through the ports and water jacket. The end result was a cast iron block that looked like the day it was dropped out of the mold.

 

[89Suburban]

My buddy is big into metal detecting. He said he uses electrolysis in a cup with a spoon as a , umm, for the stinger piece, and cleans coins up quick with a cell phone charger as the power source. Blew my mind. He finds all kinda old stuff worth a lot and has collected a lot of silver worth 3 times what it was a few years ago or something like that, even more.