First time doing electrolysis on an old horseshoe

[diabolicalbeans]

I found this neat old horseshoe the other day and decided I would attempt doing electrolysis using an old PC power supply, first I knocked some of the rust nodules off of it with a hammer, cleaned up a spot with a file and connected it all up the way I watched people do on YouTube, stuck it in a bucket with some water and baking soda and let the process begin! I'm excited to see how it turns out.

 

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[diabolicalbeans]

After 24 hours the rust flake right off, I then soaked it in some vinegar to make sure that it was fully rust free cleaned it up good heated it and quenched in oil so it won't rust again. The finished product is in pretty rough shape because of how old it is, but I'm not going to restore any further I like the old look. It's called a heart bar horse shoe which is used to provide support to a horse with a bad foot. Here are the before and after pictures.

 

[pa plateau hiker]

Neat. Those corrective shoes are not a very common find. I always bring them home when I find them. The ordinary ones are left in the woods.

 

[ANTIQUARIAN]

Being your first time doing electrolysis, you did an amazing job DB.
The early shoes I find in my area were often made of good quality iron, so the rust concretions tend to be minimal.

I actually bought another tumbler with a larger drum to accommodate plow shoes.
Dave

 

[Dug]

Good job on the relic.

Food for thought. I see many that are needlessly scarring their iron relics they are trying to restore when trying to create a contact point on the relic for electrolysis.

If you soak the relic for 24 hours in full strength white vinegar then give it a good brushing with a wire brush you would be surprised at the number of bare metal spots that appear.

 

[xaos]

Notes on artefact electrolysis....
I would make sure the power supply is providing DC, not AC as noted, alternating current alternates, so you will not get an effective cathodic reaction...

Baking soda (2NaHCO3) is the best electrolyte to add for the distilled water electrolyte..but, you have to cook it first to get rid of the moisture, 2NaHCO3=Na2CO3+H2O+CO2...
or use soda ash Na2CO3)

What was the metal for the electrode? The best electrode that I have found is stainless steel. This is easy to find in thrift shops.

Keep in mind if the artefact has been in salt water or salt environment, it must be completely leached out with fresh water soak BEFORE electrolysis, otherwise you create a Chlorine/Hydrogen reaction or Hydrochloric Acid! Boom!

If you soak the relic for 24 hours in full strength white vinegar then give it a good brushing with a wire brush you would be surprised at the number of bare metal spots that appear.

Sorry, but I would never use a wire brush on anything of value...

 

[villagenut]

Any leaching out process should always be done with distilled water, not tap water. You want to leach out the chloride ions from the iron. They are present whether it was found near salt water or not. Be careful using stainless as the sacrificial metal due to harmful gases. I prefer stainless also, but I set up outdoors.....and remember, rust never sleeps.

 

[Dug]

Sorry, but I would never use a wire brush on anything of value...

He is cleaning a horse shoe.

 

[DeepseekerADS]

He is cleaning a horse shoe.

Yep, gotta be real about that

 

[crashbandicoot]

Looks like you had success!Nice job and a relatively rare relic.

 

[treasurehuntingwithbillg]

good job on the horseshoe....i like low voltage solar and if i cant get that i like less than 4vdc 100 milliamps or so...nice and slow and if the items are diminutive then bundle them together with copper wire.....my first conservation was iron, i was getting a lot from an old homestead in seffner florida where i had permision to detect...got some nice large cents from there too, so clean....anyway my fave was a fencepost in trident shape that had been struck by lightening it ended up in some artsy stuff. the artsy stuff was iron i had cleaned with electrolysis and then wire brushed, krylon coated, then sewed on leather and framed....it was not too lucrative but i learned a lot and some people treasured the stuff. made assemblies with holed coins of period and all that....iron goes away fast, especially in wet environments...i live in nm now, and some of the iron preservation in the desert is amazing....i posted the link to Was elsewhere, there is some info in there on conservation this month, january, number 10.