Electrolysis Cleans Metal..My Ars! (Pardon My French)

[MilesSupertramp]

I dug a handle-ish thing, from the river a week ago, made of pure gold and most certainly dates back to roughly 3 billion years BC. That's great and all but the problem is I obviously want to employ a lot of TLC when it comes to cleaning it instead of the usual sink + toothbrush..rrr stiff plastic brush..rrr wire brush method. Hence, electrolysis. A quick look at electrolysis videos on YouTube will have you believing your relic will be ready for its close-ups in about the time it takes to make a sandwich and watch the top 10 plays of the day on Sportscenter. Maybe, but only if the amount of crud your relic contained is equivelant to no more than a months worth of shelf dust. Because we usually don't hunt in history museums, the pieces we find will require perhaps 10x the amount of soak time (producing roughly enough Hydrogen to recreate the Hindenburg Disaster within our garages), and you can forget about saving any paint or gilding on your piece regardless if you have your charger set on "Trickle" or "Let 'em Have It!" (luckily my handle-thingy is a prehuman era pure gold casting).

Now, if you're thinking this has been little more than a personal rant about one man's displeasure with generally all things chores/cleaning and particularly 2 week electrolysis soak times, you'd be correct. However, I do have a question: Is anyone aware of any advancements in electrolysis technology - or any other methods - that aids in time reductions and/or thoroughness?

Thanks, fellow swingers. And, successful hunting!

 

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[TwistedT]

can you post more info about your setup?
power source? electrodes? solution used?etc..

just not enuff info in your post to answer

 

[dirtscratcher]

I wouldn't think that's how you would clean gold. Gold shouldn't look like that.

 

[TwistedT]

I wouldn't think that's how you would clean gold. Gold shouldn't look like that.

well it is 3 million year old gold - and a pre human era gold casting, so that might be why it looks like that

 

[Alex Burke]

Most gold deposits at the surface are 50-500 million years old. I wouldn't try electrolysis to clean gold it is the most conductive metal and it won't work well or isn't necessary, maybe on an artifact using a complex setup I'm not sure but I think most people would use a different method. If you had real gold nothing would adhere to it like you are thinking it would and it would be obviously gold as not much can bond or stick to it. Nobody was casting gold 3 billion years ago but giving your theory the benefit of the doubt... if an ancient alien cast this and dropped it in a river it would have been pounded into flakes of gold by now Does a magnet stick to the item?

 

[gunsil]

Most gold deposits at the surface are 50-500 million years old. I wouldn't try electrolysis to clean gold it is the most conductive metal and it won't work well or isn't necessary, maybe on an artifact using a complex setup I'm not sure but I think most people would use a different method. If you had real gold nothing would adhere to it like you are thinking it would and it would be obviously gold as not much can bond or stick to it. Nobody was casting gold 3 billion years ago but giving your theory the benefit of the doubt... if an ancient alien cast this and dropped it in a river it would have been pounded into flakes of gold by now Does a magnet stick to the item?

Gold is most certainly not the most conductive metal by a long shot. Both copper and silver are better conductors with silver the highest. Why do you think copper and silver read a lot higher on your metal detector. Gold is used in electronics not for it's high conductivity but for it's corrosion resistance.

 

[Alex Burke]

Gold is most certainly not the most conductive metal by a long shot. Both copper and silver are better conductors with silver the highest. Why do you think copper and silver read a lot higher on your metal detector. Gold is used in electronics not for it's high conductivity but for it's corrosion resistance.

Okay I may have misstated that, my bad, I don't know much about conductivity or electrolysis but this isn't a 3billion year old cast was my point and to check it with a magnet as I bet it's magnetic

 

[cache finder]

Gold will not tarnish, no matter how old it is, the gold I find in the ground is still a pretty yellow and its older than any object. Dip it in acid to clean off anything.

 

[G.I.B.]

Hum... pre human.

That would make it~ Alien?