Electrolysis and cruddy ancients.

DHeath

Thought you guys might like a pic of the process doing it's thing. I'll put up pics of the coin tomm.

Vet

Don't leave it in to long I destroyed a 1858 FE like that

sliderider

I'd send a PM to Lord M before you get too involved in that. He wrote once about using electolysis to clean one of his digs and ended up destroying it.

Craton

Electrolysis can be fun but I would never use it on an expensive coin. I have had great succes with crusty ancients but have destroyed a few as well. I snooped around in my online folders and found this. It is a cleaning that I did on a buffalo nickel that a guy from RCC had soaked in olive oil for a year and documented each month. The olive oil did little to nothing. Below you will find a link to images in a six step cleaning. Every 10 min. I would take the coin out and image the obverse and the reverse of the coin. For fun I also imaged the water so you could see just how much junk it pulled off of the coin. Have a looksie:
Electrolysis on a Buffalo

lordmarcovan

Electrolysis is great on silver, but watch out on those crusty bronzes. A quick zap will probably do some good, but as the previous posts mentioned, I destroyed a Draped Bust cent with electrolysis (my first dug large cent I found with the detector). It was already pretty far gone when I dug it, but you could see Liberty's hair bow, parts of the wreath, and ONE CENT pretty clearly under the corrosion. It was definitely a Draped Bust cent. I left it in too long and now it is a completely featureless, cratered brown slug.

I would imagine you'll have some great success on some and some scary failures, too. I never tried electrolysis on uncleaned ancients before, to be honest. But it's pretty much the same as my large cent, right? Except those were buried for 2,000 years instead of 200. I had pretty good success cleaning up a batch of those ancients in a rock tumbler, using ordinary beach sand as a medium (tumbled 'em overnight).

I need to make another electrolysis rig, but I am an electrical/electronic idiot and don't wanna kill myself or burn the house down. I built the old one I had with an AC adaptor and some alligator clips, using instructions I got from a detector magazine. I lost my rig in a move, and the directions, too. If anybody has some instructions on building a safe "zapper" (what sort of adaptor to use, etc.), I would be most grateful for the info, as would many of my brethren on the Detector Forum.

I like the split ring you use to hold the coin- probably beats the alligator clips I used to use, and lasts longer, I'd reckon?

lordmarcovan

PS- hey, Craton- great pics of the procedure. Your rig looks like mine did. You should've show the progress on a silver or copper coin, though, maybe- the results on that Buff weren't that dramatic. (But you probably did the right thing by takin' it easy).

lordmarcovan

TTT to push down some of the stoopid spoof threads I began earlier (which set sliderider off on a similar tangent).

Besides, I really want somebody to chime in with good info on making another electrolysis rig. I need one.

It's worth a freebie coin or two to me.

sliderider

Here Lord M, try this:


A Shocking Development

There is also a fast way of cleaning coins. Through electrolysis you can quickly remove the dirt from a coin and have a nice looking coin within a day or two. To build an electrolysis machine you will need an AC adapter, a stainless steel spoon, salt or baking soda, a bowl, and alligator clips.

Cut the end off the cord of the AC adapter. Separate the wires. Strip some of the shielding away from the wires and wrap the wires, each around the end of an alligator clip. Then fill a plastic or glass bowl with water and put in about ¼ cup of salt or baking soda (baking soda is more gentle). Stir, then attach one of the alligator clips to the spoon, and put the spoon in the water. The alligator clip attached to the spoon should not be in the water. Bending the spoon helps. (Careful as bending and using spoons and bowls can cause adverse reactions from spouse). Then put the other alligator clip in the water. Plug it in and observe which one fizzes. Then unplug it. If the spoon fizzed, then detach the alligator clip and put the other one on the spoon. The fizzing end should attach to the coin. Then attach the coin and put them in the water. Plug it in again, and watch the dirt fly off. Before long a layer of dirt and metal will form on the surface of the water. You will need to change the water whenever this gets thick as it can be corrosive. I find that 20 minutes works for me, but that may vary with the coin, the amount of water and the amount of salt. More salt means it works faster. BE CAREFUL!! I'll try to have pics before long.

You can get a nasty shock if you aren’t careful. Don’t go touching the water or the spoon, without unplugging it. After each 20 minute treatment take it out and scrub it with a toothbrush and rub it on the towel. I find that dabs of the valve oil works well for this part. Then just repeat until you have a nice coin.

Now this usually destroys the patina which greatly reduces its resale value, and also removes a small layer of metal, which, if there wasn’t much on the coin before, there certainly won’t be now, but it leaves you with a beautiful coin when done properly

lordmarcovan

Thanks- I think "A Shocking Development" was the title of the article I originally got that info from, but as I recall, there was also a list of electrical specs for the AC adapters that were safe to use?

As I said before, I am an electrical idiot. I made a jack-o'-lantern one year and decided to put a red lightbulb in it instead of a candle. Got an old lamp socket and went to work, crosswired it somehow, and tripped every breaker or blew every dang fuse in the house, plunging us all into darkness.

Twice. My ex-wife was not amused.

So I wanna be sure it is safe. Will any old AC adapter do the trick? I have some from old electronic appliances that are now long since gone. Seems to me there was some "ma" rating I needed to know- what is that? Milliamperes? I am a total dunce.

sliderider

That's all the information that was in the article. Of course, it came from a website that sells cruddy ancients in need of cleaning for outrageous prices, so take it with a grain of salt (or baking soda).

earlwbollinger

A simple transformfer type AC to DC adapter should work OK, 9v, 12v, 13.6v, 18v. The higher the voltage the better.
Don't use the newer more expensive switching power adapters, as they'll probably turn themselves off instead of working correctly.

nwcs

One thing I found that worked well with some ancients in poor condition is to soak in olive oil and then use a dremel with the polishing wheel attached (but with no polishing compound). It improved a number of pieces to be almost recognizable. But it can be messy at high speeds.

DHeath

First, thanks guys for the warnings.

Jason, great experiment!

Neil, I haven't considered abrasion, but I soaked these guys for almost a year in olive oil to little effect. I decided to read through a great article and play at home. You guys might like the link

LM, It's my first effort, so I no NOTHING, but thought you might like a look at the transformer I chose. I used it because of its variable voltage and 300 ma power. I fully expect most of the stuff I have is so poor as to emerge as slugs, but there are a few pieces that just might be identifiable. We'll see.



I wish I had before pics, but the coin was unidentifiable. I'm going to let it bath again tonight for a short period before I boil it. Here are the mid-state pics.