Electrolysis Before and After?

[Russ Leggitt]

Well, a fellow Cubber has brought me a eigth ft by eight ft hot tub to use
as an electrolysis vat. Wonder how many cub parts I could get into that
thing. Some one asked about cleaning out the inside of the hood/tank.
Well, I guess I am the only guy in the world that has a vat that does not
use "line of sight" technology and uses electrochemical technology and
uses the molecules in the electrolyte to transfer the electric charge to the
rusty article. Therefore, I have found that I can clean the inside of boxes,
tanks, and other enclosed configurations of parts or implements. As
long as the electrolyte can touch it, it cleans. However, I do have only
one (1) anode which has a surface area of approximately 150 square
inches on each side this may in some way account for this phenomenon. Hope this helps some one with their electrolysis cleaning.

I do plan to try the TSP in another vat after reading all the glowing
reports of its advantages over washing soda.

[Peter Person]

Well, we (Aron, Emily, & Peter) got the tank up and running at 6:00pm tonight. Only problem encountered so far is a slow leak out of one of the plugs in the barrel and one very small drip from the drain valve.

Rudi - I'll post the pictures on Monday, don't have the camera cable at home.

Peter

[Cecil]

The tank we pored the solution into leakes around one of the bungs too. I didn't find it until the tank was empty. At least it will be easier to move.

[Rudi]

The tank we pored the solution into leakes around one of the bungs too. I didn't find it until the tank was empty. At least it will be easier to move.

Cecil:

You know that is stirring the brain cells. I seem to remember kind of reefing on them inserts (bungs??) to make sure they tightened up real good.. so far .. NO leaks and my fingers remain crossed..

[Psycho]

Rudi,
I'll have my tank up and running this weekend. I got TSP (with phosphate) at Lowe's.
The 1st part going in will be the Fast-Hitch prong I got from Ralph.
I'll provide a complete report including B4 & after pictures.
Peter

Peter,
Looking forward to seeing the pics. I'm just starting to aquire the parts I need. It'll be a while.. too many other projects have to get done first.. Leaking roof, carb on tractor, carb on backhoe.....
Bob

[Cecil]

Mine will be a while also. I have the partitions up in the barn for the shop and started putting up the insulation today. By the looks I'll be able to have 3 Cubs torn apart at the same time and still have a little room. Boy am I glad she kicked me out of the garage.

[Buzzard Wing]

I figured it was time to start on the snow plow, so I put my new 'Rudi Special' tank from CubFest into operation today. Sure hope you guys checked the bungs, cause I sure didn't!

Took me a couple of minutes to figure out the color coding (ohmmeter helped).... But now I get it, red is black and black is red.

I reused my eye hook board. Comes in handy for stringing stuff up and I usually have a jumper between the two. Since I am used to some kind of Frankenstien looking tank, I threw in another small part just so I could have another wire in the mix. And since I went directly to the rebar with the positive, I used the 'spare clamp' for another piece of rebar.

It is cooking up a storm now.... the only catch is I don't see how the plow blade will fit!



Film at 11!

Larry

[Peter Person]

Got home tonight to an overflowing dish pan under the tank. Emptied out 50gal of solution and cranked down on the course thread bung and cemented the threaded valve.
No LEAKS

Filled the tank back up, scuffed up the rebar and dropped the prong back into the bubbles.

Even after one day in the tank the rust was just flaking off.

Sure beats wire wheels.

Peter

[Rudi]

Larry:

Fitting the blade in is rather simple.. but it does require you to learn the 2 step. Not the foxtrot.. but the 2 step

You put the blade in and make sure you have enough solution to cover just over 50% of the blade.. let the tank do it's magic... then invert and redo..

Oh.. positioning the blade will be a little trickier.. you might need and extra pair of hands.. but IT WILL FIT.. mine did.. just make sure the blade does not touch the rebar..

[Buzzard Wing]

Thanks Rudi... I have done the two step several times. But when I went to the 55 gallon unit (the crude one) I think I only needed to do it on the front axle. But it may not be wide enough?

I guess I should check.

[Rudi]

Larry:

It is wide enough.. just, but it is wide enough.. Gords and mine went into our tanks.. it will fit in yours..

[Peter Person]

Here are some pictures;

Fast-Hitch Prong B4:


Tank Base:


Soups Up:


The Tank:


We have Bubbles:


I'll be pulling the prong out of the tank on Tuesday and cleaning it up for all to see.

Peter

[400lbsonacubseatspring]

When cleaning out your tank what do you do with all the nice stuff that is at the bottom of it.

Actually any number of things..

1. Drain the sludge into an open container, allow excess water to continue to drain via a small drain (ie.. oil pan), then you can dispose of the solid matter in the back yard etc..

2. I personally find that most of the materials are quite benign, and make an excellent fertilizer.. especially where I am having problems growing grass (I am terra-forming my back 23 acres... ) so I use it along side the road or in areas that are lacking vegetation.

3. The liquid itself (although by using TSP - you only need to drain the sludge occassionally, the fluid can remain) if you must drain the tank can be safely applied to your lawn etc. as a fertilizer. Just don't drain it anywhere near your trout or Koi pond...

Disposing of it in this manner may have some tree huggers up in arms, but true environmentalists understand that phosphates are naturally occuring.. and do not present any danger to the enviornment except in humongous doses such as when heavy industry produces it as a byproduct or municipalities dump raw sewage into Lake Erie and Lake Ontario providing the famous soap foam crown to the Great Lakes back in the 60's.

Also, if one is concerned about phosphates and JUST DOESN'T FEEL COMFORTABLE - then Savogran provides a Phosphate Free Tri-Sodium Phosphate ????, and is available in places such as the entire State of New York -- Right Cecil

Oh and surprisingly the Phosphate Free Tri-Sodium Phosphate, works almost as well as the real stuff which I learned at CubFest Northeast 2006

Rudi,

I may be the forum's resident tree-hugger, I suppose, but I agree with you whole-heartedly.

It is far wiser to use this as a fertilizer (It's pretty darn hard to get too much phosphate into your garden), than to dump it into your local sewerage system.

Sewerage treatment centers seem to (inexplicably) have a hard time getting rid of phosphates in their water. Ferric Phospate (the logical leftover of all of this, although I'm no chemical engineer) and excessive TSP precipitate, are both innocuous enough substances.

We spend a fortune on things like rock phosphate, and bone meal, when things like this we tend to want to flush down the sewer. I also feel the same about the efflux from dishwashers. Don't be foolish....make good use of the stuff, and dump it on your gardens......Unless you have a high likelihood of excessive runoff to wetlands or streams, no harm will be done.

Ferric phosphate would also provide your garden with a bit of Iron, one of the micronutrients that is often lacking, despite the fact that our planet is composed of 2/3 iron. Too much sodium can be a problem, but, TSP will not remain as TSP very long in the garden.....it will break-down, with the first rains into more stable salts. The sodium will bind with much more attractive elements and free radicals, like chlorine, and it will likely leach out of your soil as salt.

If you did stuff like this, and pumped your dishwater efflux out onto your garden, you would find that your overall need for phosphate fertilizer would gradually reduce over time, and having phosphate-rich soil...not just the top 3 inches that a top-dressing provides, is a very valuable thing.

The dangers of phosphates really comes from the fact that it encourages the bloom of water-flora to increase....sometimes dramatically and almost overnight, suffocating the fish.....water plants, and algae can increase so quickly, that at night, when they use oxygen instead of produce it, they can deplete a pond or slow-running stream of its oxygen rather rapidly.

Overall, given enough time, the problem always balances back out, but it is this rapid growth, from phosphate fertilization, that causes the initial problem, and the fish kills. The same thing happens when a big rain happens after a farmer top-dresses.....local streams get full of all of the nutrients, and the blooms get out of control. You may have noticed how "green" the ponds looked here in the northeast early this summer, when we had all that rain in early July. It was largely caused by fertilizer runoff.....no permanent damage was done......and the corn grew taller than ever......

An experiment into the quality of the precipitate as a phosphate fertilizer would be to use it on a rosebush.......one of the heaviest phosphate-feeders I can think of. Check the results and use it accordingly.......

[george]

I would have disposal concerns with that sludge if there is lead in any of the old paints. Does anyone know?
George

[Rudi]

Tom:

Exactly, that is precisely what happened with the algae and fungi blooms in the Great Lakes during the late 50's all through the 60's and continued until both the US Congress and Canada's House of Commons essentially regulated the use of phosphates for household but more primarily for Industrial concerns.

George:

The amount of lead would be innocuous and would probably be far less than the ambient/naturally occuring amounts of lead present in pretty much an soil on the continent. Lead being one of the more common of the elements (I learned this in my propecting course). I certainly have no concerns about the amounts present. In fact I really have serious doubts about the presence of lead in the paints anyways..