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A/C Adaptor for Electrolysis
Pghpete
Posts: 200 ✭✭✭
Can someone repost the entry about using an A/C adaptor for electrolysis to clean crusty coins? I was unsuccessful on my search attempts. Is there an ideal voltage amount? What's too much and too low of a voltage? Thanks.
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They suggest 9, 12, or 18 volts. I use a 12.
Isn't that like selling your car for gas money?
<< <i>If I used like a 5.6v would that work? If so, what would you estimate the time it would take to complete the process? >>
Not sure if it would work or not. There is no set time for electrolysis. One coin that may take 3 minutes to clean the next one could be 30 seconds. You have to watch the process closely or you may fry your coin.
Here is a simple rig but can be quite expensive if you are doing a lot of coins.
CONECA #N-3446
<< <i>rick's EZ-est work alot better than electroylsis. >>
Not in my experience. EZ-est or other "dips" seldom have much effect at all on the dug silver I have tried them on, and practically no effect at all on copper and nickel stuff I have dug. Works great for tarnished non-dug silver, but I usually need something stronger for dug coins. Toothpaste or baking soda, even. And those are mildly abrasive.
Chemical means like EZ-est and other commercial dips, or acids like toilet bowl cleaner (or even the "tater trick" for copper), can help, as can mechanical (abrasive) means like toothpaste, baking soda, rock tumblers, brass wire brushes, and steel wool (for the really crusty stuff), but all of those have side effects, sometimes nasty ones.
Electrolysis is nonabrasive and I'm not even sure it would count as a chemical means of cleaning. It has aspects of both chemical and mechanical cleaning, I suppose. The electrolyte solution one uses is sort of a chemical bath, perhaps, and the coursing of electrons through the metal of the coin has some mechanical effect, microscopically speaking, but it's nice because you don't scratch up the coin like most mechanical cleaning methods do, or give it a dull appearance like some chemical means do.
Ideally, electrolysis just causes everything that ain't metal to float off the surface of your metal object. Of course, if a coin has corroded to the point where the crud on it has interacted chemically with the coin's metal for decades, it's kind of hard to tell where the dividing line is between what's metal and what isn't- the crust around a corroded coin is often metallic, itself.
Usually silver responds quite well to electrolysis, as would gold. Copper and nickel are OK if they haven't corroded too much.
A corroded coin is more unstable. I have told the story of how I accidentally "burnt up" my first dug large cent using electrolysis. It was a circa 1796-1807 Draped Bust coin, too. I could see part of Liberty's hair bow on the obverse and the wreath on the reverse. Had I decided to clean it mechanically (with a fine brass brush) and chemically (with the "tater trick"), and patiently soaked it in oil and lightly brushed it over time, I might've been able to read the date on it eventually. But I got impatient and within a few minutes of using electrolysis, I had ruined it. Now it is just a brown slug, featureless except for the pits in its surface.
While I wouldn't recommend it for corroded or pitted coins, I think electrolysis might just be the best cleaning method out there for a lot of dug coins, particularly silver. (Gold, too, but gold might not even need it- gold coins are so stable they can probably be cleaned with plain water much of the time). Look at what shipwreck salvors and many of the Florida treasure beach hunters use to clean their Spanish cobs: electrolysis. A lot of that shipwreck silver that has been in seawater is totally covered in a black crust, to the point that the coins look like little, flat charcoal briquets.