THE GREAT SHARK PIT COOKIES CLEANING EXPERIMENT

[Floater]

Never a dull moment around here is the motto for this one folks. As you know from reading Todays Finds ,Rtde3 has a honey hole called the Shark pit. He has graciously consented (Begged)?to have his coins cleaned in .? Floaters Folgers Electrolysis Machine? If you are not familiar with this please go to this link: http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,10898.0.html In all reality I am honored to help Rtde3 do this and this should be a lot of fun.

The first set of pictures? shows the state of the Cookies as they arrived here at the Floater Conservatory. Dont you love this stuff.??

[Floater]

Same Cookies just front or back.??

[Floater]

More of the cookies.

[Floater]

OK now we have seen the coins and the condition of these. I do not know what these coins are and did not examine them much closer than the pics show either. Rtde3 may know or have an idea of what these are but I am clueless. ( no comments on that last statement here either until later? ) I swear I'm cracking myself up on this one.

The next pics show the coins as they will sit in the machine for the next week or so. The stainless steel screen is from one of those spatter screens you buy for grease. I picked it up at the dollar store for ..... You guessed it a dollar. I cut a piece and bent it around my stainless steel spoon that I paid a fortune for at Linens And Thongs. (5 Bucks?)? The screen is elevated off the spoon and the spoon has holes so the solution will get to all parts of the coins.

[Floater]

So far so Good. OK the next pic shows the how this sits in the machine and then we will go into the process and time frames.

[Floater]

Well With all this done I poured the distilled water into the tank at 8:00 PM this evening which is the 11th of August.
I used about a half gallon of the water and 2 heaping teaspoons of Soda Ash.

For those of you that read the whole link to the machine you will notice that? Conservator who is a Professional lent us some of his expertise and techniques. I am hoping he chimes in here as the days go by so we may get his thoughts. I will post pictures tomorrow of the Rig in action .

So far the bubbling is nice and lite but has finally started to circulate around the coins. I believe that because the coins were dry when I started before they went into the solution and it took a while for the metal to become attracted through moisture in the capsule of sand they are in.
I also checked the voltage across the wires and the fluid. The amps are holding at 130mA the voltage at the connections is 7.76VDC and the Voltage across the Fluid is 5.56VDC? which tells you that we have a draw in the fluid and the reaction is setting up perfectly so far. I do not notice any loss of fluid yet but will check it tommorrow morning and adjust if necessary .
Thanks for looking and post away.

[mattjd]

Can't wait to see the finished product! I'm guessing it's all silver coinage.

Nice of you to clean the coins for him.

Thanks for posting this as it will be interesting.

Matt

[omnicognic]

Floater, this is really great the way you are setting up this post, documenting everything. It's very infomative and I can't wait to see the results!

[Noodle]

I'm breathless ... it's gonna be a loooong week ... This is great!

Noodle

[rtde3]

Nice job Floater! I have no idea what these coins are so we will all find out together! Thanks again for taking this on! RTDE3

[Floater]

HOUSTON WE HAVE A PROBLEM!

Well after 11 hours I woke up this morning and checked on the coins and process the below picture show the condition at 7:10 AM the 12 of August.

The water was a dark blue almost black color. This is in the first picture.

The second picture shows the coins as they were lifted out of the solution on the screened spoon.

I then brought them into the house to give them a rinse in fresh water. If you look at the larger coin you can see the sludge that has come off the coin next to it. the other two have a small amount.

What happened next is where the trouble becomes evident.

[Floater]

Breathe deep the Gathering Gloom

I brought the coins in and stopped the Process and unplugged the rig. Also please note a correction to the post concerning Amps and volts. The Correct amps is really 130mA not 300mA as shown above.

While gently rinsing the small coins the first one started to flake apart. I immediately stopped this rinsing and was left with the small pieces and the larger section of this coin also delaminated.

I gently rinsed the first one but only for a few seconds to just stop any reactions caused by the Electrolysis.
These are the two smaller coins of the three.

In the second picture you can see the third coin also the largest one of the three. It had turned a pewter type of color that was evident in the previous picture. The rinse also yielded a soft almost clay like substance that came off of this coin as I rinsed it. This coin appears stable so far.

[Floater]

Well since I have stopped the process this morning, the coins are soaking in fresh water.

One thought is that the disimuliar metals are not to be cleaned together with electrolysis.

The other is that maybe the smaller coins need to be soaked only and tryed to be cleaned with a solution process only.

I am halting all work untill Conservator has had a chance to review the information that is present here.

The other thought is that maybe before this process we should not assume that the objects are coins or made of silver or copper or nickel ?

I am not sure if there is a way to determine this prior to cleaning or Preserving.

[Floater]

OK,

Floater, I understand the stainless steel spoon is supposed to be the anode, where is your cathode connection the coins?

You cannot have different metals frying at the same time so close because you will have an extreme galvanic corrosion reaction. (The nobler metal will eat away at less noble metal)

Yes, these could be pewter or another tin alloy making them unstable in the first place, you might be working with the graphitized shell an artefact with no metal left to it.

Your actual amperage maybe too low also.

Answer these questions for me and if worse comes to worse you can send me the objects and I'll take a look or put them in my mix.

Thanks Conservator.
1. The machine is setup like this . The Positive connection is attached to a bolt through the side of the plastic container. The water level is above the bolt. The negative connection is attached to the SS spoon The screen is around the spoon and the coins sit on the screen. The bolt and spoon dont touch. The current is drawn thru the water only between the two . This is DC current as measured above at 130 mA.
All three objects were on the same spoon. The two smaller object are the size of a penny and the larger piece is the size of a quarter.
The penny size pieces appears black like rust when it broke apart. Like I said above the larger piece a you can see is silverish. Pewter?
The solution is distilled water. 1/2 gal with two tablespoons Soda ash mixed in .

My question to you Conservator is my mix correct or is this too much Soda?
How does one decide if the silver has become purely sulfide?
Is there a mix of the ash used without Electrolysis or strictly with it.?

Thanks in advance.

[Floater]

Ok Conservator . I read some more on your topic Feel Free Ask a Conservator. I also noted your opinions and I wanted to make it clear to everyone that your qualifications are beyond reproach. I would also like to say that this topic was started by me so I can learn and teach others so they may properly address the questions of Electrolysis with the knowledge they need and the confidence to do it right. As hobbyist we do like to control a lot of our own destiny and I would say that if you feel we get in over our heads we would respect that opinion and send our valuable finds to someone like you to be handled properly. I know a lot of people here and they dont hide there finds in the back of garages or sheds. I believe most are proud of there finds and as such enjoy sharing them with others. I know I do and I still get laughed at, but everytime I add a little something to the collection, or even learn a little bit more of what I have, it makes it easier for me to explain and tell others the real storys. When you do this they listen, the conversation flows and they do appreciate what you have. Thanks again
David

[surfrat96]

Excellent work Professor Floater! Will you do my son's science project this year? He'll be sure to get a first place ribbon!! LOL

All kidding aside, this was an excellent and interesting thread. Very well done!

Thanks!!

HH 8) surfrat

[Floater]

The Experiment Continues

Well After Awaiting word back from Conservator I have decided to continue. I did some more research and found that so far we are on the right path.
There was a couple of mistakes made ,one being placing all three coins in the same batch at the same time.
NEVER TRY TO CLEAN TWO DIFFERENT METALS TOGETHER IN ELECTROLYSIS

The second mistake was too much soda ash in the solution. The machine only has to use a half gallon of water so 1/2 tablespoon of Soda ash is enough. For more delicate jobs this could be cut down also to 1/4 Tablespoon in a half gallon.

I'm sure Conservator may come back with something but I made the decision to proceed with the task at hand. After reducing the solution and soaking the coin for 13 hrs in fresh water alone I put it back in the machine for 5 hrs tonight. I just pulled it back out and rinsed it again and it will soak overnight in fresh water

WE HAVE A COIN

The edge is visible in these pics and the metal appears to be stable and holding its weight. Also a slight shine was present but not sure if the camera picked it up. I am real happy about this, here are the progress shots.

[JakePhelps]

And it looks silver!!!

[Floater]

Another note is this is the larger piece. I still have one of the small ones intact but will discontinue work on that until we have completed this one to its final conclusions. Here are some more pics

[mattjd]

It does look like silve,r doesn't it.

Very exciting post!

Matt