Electrolysis to Clean Coins
Here's a closer view. To stop the reaction get some baking soda and while rinsing your coin under a faucet, use an old toothbrush and rub some of the baking soda on it. I usually use my fingers, which works good also, but the black will stain your fingers.
After cleaning this coin up I was surprised to see many details including the date on this Standing Liberty quarter.
Hope
you found this tutorial useful. We will try to write some more like this
one in the near future, so stop by often!
Others who dared to try : )
We do get a large amount of emails from folks about this tutorial. Some love it, others can't get it to work. This one email struck me as quite interesting, and I asked Mark if it was OK to post it here. I thought it would be a great addition to this page, so we can see how others are using electrolysis to their advantage.
From Mark Brophy
I just wanted to pass on a word of thanks to who ever wrote
this article, your instructions for making a home based electrolysis set up was
easy to follow and build.
I recently got back in to coin collecting, and while out antiquing with my wife I came across a bulk bag of ancient Roman coins so I bought them. I did clean some of the coins the old fashioned way by soaking them in various solutions and using polishes like "Peek" to do the rest.
Cleaning
ancient coins is a time consuming, pain staking effort - that I enjoy doing,
however coupled with your electrolysis set up the coins come out much cleaned
and with sharper original detail coming to life.
Please see two photo on the right, back and front of the first Roman coin I cleaned with your electrolysis set up - I am impressed.
These photos do not do this particular coin any justice, If you saw this in your hand, you would be as impressed as I with the final results.
It does not stop with the electrolysis, but a very good start.
Here are a couple of things I learned so far:
A) I use a 12 volt transformer, I fully intent to get one of higher voltage.
B) Depending on the size of glass, you may want to up the salt content to 2 teaspoons, or more.
C) What ever spoon you use for the positive pole, will eventually become useless as an eating utensil, the electrolysis process will damage the spoon over time.
D) Do not be shy with the lemon juice, 1 ounce to a glass of water seems to work fine.
E) I have found that 5 minutes is not quite enough time, I have had a single coin in electrolysis for up to an hour, with great results.
The only caution here is you need to watch the transformer carefully for the longer it runs the hotter it gets - real hot. For the people who claim your set up does not work, ask them to leave the coin or object in the electrolysis for 10 to 15 minutes, if the water has not changed color by then, or no bubbling is visible - then it is possible that what they are trying to clean does not have a metal alloy base.
Final Cleaning:
A)
You will need some very fine steel wool #00, the type used to clean glass, this
will help buff out any remaining dirt, build up off of the face, and it will not
damage the coin in any way.
B) With a soft tooth brush, use a polish like "Peek", and apply with the brush, do not let dry but stand for a few seconds, then buff with a soft cloth. The alloys I have tested with your process so far, with success, would be Gold, Silver, Bronze & Copper. The photos here are of a Copper coin.
Mark Brophy
Bradford, Ontario, Canada
I'd like to say great job on your tutorial, but I felt like you might want to know something. The way electroysis works is by spilting molecules down to their seperate parts (anions and cations) and they then get attracted to the opposite charge. So for example, with water, the oxygen atoms would attract the the anion (cause oxygen is negatively charged) and hydrogen gas attracts to the cations (cause it is positively charged.) Thats how you can also remove rust from items attached to the cation, (rust is metal-oxide).
The reason I bring this up is because one of the steps calls for the use of a spoonful of salt so as to make the mixture an electrolyte. Salt, being Sodium-Chloride, would break down into harmless sodium, and not-so harmless chloride gas. Most electroysis hobbiests avoid the use of salt because it releases (albeit very slowly) chloride gas, which causes harm to anyone breathing it in. Most people will replace potentially dangerous Salt, with Baking Soda. Baking Soda breaks down into a much more safe mixture, and it works just as well.
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