Turn the vice on it's side.Here
you can see that the chuck jaws were not below fluid level from the beginning, there just wasn't enough height in the trough.
But that's not a problem, since the goal here is to get rust out of the functional areas of the vise, I can take care of the rust on the easily accessible parts pretty easily once I get it apart non-destructively.
Carsten
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I can take care of the rust on the easily accessible parts pretty easily once I get it apart non-destructively.
Both good and correct advice. Thank you! ... the only difficulty: I can't change the current setup without completely dismantling it.
I think you may have discovered the recipe for Irn-Bru.
Hopefully I won't spoil anyone's appetite for breakfast ... in any case, electrolysis is progressing:
View attachment 319015
The initial current has halved after 20 hours, significantly more rusty nasty foam has formed, the level of the caustic has gone down by about 8-10mm.
Have a nice Sunday anyway!
Carsten
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Just the thing to go with a deep fried Mars bar.As announced, we finished the old set-up, poured away the muck and took a look at the vice first.
View attachment 319124
It's easy to see that a lot has already happened ... but it is still stuck.
View attachment 319125
We removed the shield that supports the spindle nut and also removed the latter, which probably could have been done before the first electrolysis, but with it installed, you can also apply a nice opening force - but it wasn't enough yet.
To be able to put the vice on its side, we had to change from a 60-litre vat to one with a capacity of 90 litres, because the thing is also quite high.
The anode did its job.
View attachment 319128
Ready for the second pass, this time in the larger vat, lying on its side and only applying the lye when the vice is positioned.
View attachment 319130
After mixing and applying the voltage, a rather violent reaction starts quite quickly.
The current lags a little behind the first bath, which I attribute to the fact that I chose a different soda mixture: Less powder of a stronger lye, so the effect should be quite strong despite less current flow.
View attachment 319131
There's no caffeine in ours, Steve, but they get their dye from us, shhh.
Carsten
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Growing up in Scotland the TV ad (we didn't have TV but one family in the street did, so it's all round to theirs) was 'Barr's Irn Bru, that's the drink for you' -- grandkids have no idea what I'm on about when I sing it in an appropriate accent.
I worked with some Scots lads in the early 80's, they moved south after being promised jobs by the Thatcher government. They used to complain that you couldn't get Irn Bru in Portsmouth, then, I'd neve heard of it. Well we all have now, but I still don't know what 'tatty scones' or 'square sausages' are.
It's a flat sausage so that you can see what's in it and the butcher can't disguise the rubbish with a bit of pig gut or plastic. At least, that's the theory...
I haven't had a moment's peace about the various principles of galvanic rust removal that are out there, so I've spent the last few days looking at dozens, if not nearly a hundred, pages on the subject, in writing and on youtube - in two languages. 
Just an observation, but if 'line of sight' was such an issue, wouldn't electro plating be nigh on impossible?
- The line-of-sight story is being spread through sites that are more on the DIY level, often in exactly the same wording and if you look inside, whole passages seem to be copied from other sites. So much so that even with tracking deviations, like typos, I couldn't figure out where it started. I didn't take the trouble to search the archives for the oldest publications.
- In all publications with a minimum of scientific claim (not very many, partly straining the limits of my chemical understanding), which deal with the topic, line-of-sight does not appear!
- Of course, line-of-sight is of great importance when it comes to separating water into its components: If you want to extract H and O as elemental gases, you must of course know very precisely where they will rise as bubbles in order to collect them there. Maybe this is part of how the myth came into the world?!?!
As expected, I could not find a direct answer about the question in connection with rust removal from a competent authority.
So I experimented.
After about a day in the last setup, the current decreased noticeably.
I looked for material to increase the anode area and found that I still had the identical piece of flat iron from which the first anode came. This one was still in the folded shape like the other one originally, only when I tried to unfold the first one, it broke and I brought it into the present shape.
View attachment 319389
I left this piece folded, connected it via a red wire and sunk it near the first anode.
Result: The current rose to over twice the value.
If there was anything to line-of-sight, the current should have increased only slightly, because although the anode area was increased, only a small part could "see" the vice.
Furthermore, why would galvanic rust removal be used at all to separate stuck parts, since the contact points where the blockage sits virtually never have a direct view of the anode? And why does the back of the anode always get as dirty as the front?
But why was the increase in current higher than a doubling, with only a doubling of the total area of the anode?
Another day later, we took both anodes out of the broth and rinsed them thoroughly. Otherwise, the set-up remained identical.
We then lowered both anodes back into their original positions and applied voltage again.
Result: The current flows at a strength that is again above all previous values.
This means that the effect of cleaning the electrodes after, say, one day, has a much greater effect than the other measures, other conditions remaining the same.
The over-doubling of the first increase in surface area can be explained by the fact that not only was the surface area increased, but this additional surface area was clean and thus the clean surface area increased to more than double, because the first anode had already been in the alkaline solution for a day and had worked.
View attachment 319392
And how did the splashes of rusty lye get everywhere in the picture?
Well, I did a little lesson in applied electrochemistry with my boys, it was about the detection of oxyhydrogen gas in the decomposition of water....
... worked ....
.... lights went on everywhere in the neighbourhood ....
Luckily we all had eye protection on and after changing our clothes we were allowed back into the house.
Anyone else still awake??? Thank you!
Carsten
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Mods, would you please move this last post to the vice-thread where it was supposed to be? Thanks!
Graeme, it could well be that the people in the galvanising shop are told exactly what to do and never give it a second thought.
I wonder if the same applies to the foreman...?
In any case, I see baskets there into which bulk material is put, then they are connected to the main electrode distribution and drained into the bath for galvanising.
I've also seen people shaking such baskets next to the galvanising bath, maybe they get randomly rearranged after a while. What is absolutely certain, however, is that other parts and the grids of the baskets shade the direct view in an unpredictable way.
This may be handled differently in your country ...
I even took my complete quick-change adapter frame for the Unimog front loader there, right after welding it together, without disassembling it, because I didn't want to lose any individual parts.
Yes, I can see that there is no such surface in bolt holes and in the latch as on the exposed parts, but 1) there is no rust in the cavities either and 2) also not all sides of all tubes of the whole frame can have had visual contact with the cathode at all times.
I would be very interested to know more about your method of electroplating for home use. You hinted at it at the beginning of your writing here, but never elaborated. Thank you.
Carsten
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