Electropolishing and cleaning stainless steel and aluminum

[bborr01]

Hi Evan,

I too am interested in your work. I am filing it away with the posts about de-rusting through electrolisis.

Handy information to know when the time comes that one needs it.

Keep up the fascinating work.

Brian

[SDL]

i want you to scuff a bit a stainless up with 100 grit paper ..then do the polishing process ..
only then will i be convinced .

where the hell do you get phosphoric acid from cheap ?

all the best.markj

That will give you very shiny scratches. We mirror polish the inside of the UV chambers to 15 µm (16RA") then electropolish, you can see you face like a mirror. The outside we do with 120 grit and it is very bright but full of lines and no reflection.

The process also increases corrosion resistance.

Steve Larner

[aboard_epsilon]

That will give you very shiny scratches. We mirror polish the inside of the UV chambers to 15 µm (16RA") then electropolish, you can see you face like a mirror. The outside we do with 120 grit and it is very bright but full of lines and no reflection.

The process also increases corrosion resistance.

Steve Larner

thats what i thought ..only capable of taking the peaks off and smoothing the troughs of the scratches ....just the same as using 1000 grit on 100 grit scratches and never really getting anywhere ..because it has to be done stage by stage.

what final grit gives you 15 µm (16RA") ?

all the best.markj

[lazlo]

More accurately, they are a wealth of information... from which you can't derive income.

Market the mixture, you have a problem. Use it in your garage, no problem.

Not at all true. If you derive a benefit from it, i.e. you use it, you have deprived the patent holder of the income he otherwise could have gotten from you (directly or indirectly). Therefore your private use of the patented process or device is exactly equivalent to selling a product based on it with no license, just on a much smaller scale.

Jerry's right -- according to US patent law, you're allowed to make a copy of a patented device "for instructional purposes" (essentially, to prove that the device actually works), but using the device is patent infringement, even if you're not deriving income from it.

That's not just hair-splitting for HSM'ers -- when we were crawling through the FogBuster patent on PracticalMachinist, several people posted pictures of the copies they made based on the rec.metalworking analysis of the patent, and they're just asking for trouble from FogBuster...

[Evan]

The most Fogbuster can do is issue a cease and desist order. They haven't lost any revenue so they can't sue for damages.

At any rate it makes no difference as I am not infringing any patents. I am really surprised that anybody can even get a modern patent on electropolishing. There are so many expired patents that just about any combination of electrolytes and additives are covered. It draws directly from electroplating which goes back to the Babylonians so there is a very large body of prior art.

[Peter N]

Decided to edit this out to avoid thread hijacking

[SDL]

thats what i thought ..only capable of taking the peaks off and smoothing the troughs of the scratches ....just the same as using 1000 grit on 100 grit scratches and never really getting anywhere ..because it has to be done stage by stage.

what final grit gives you 15 µm (16RA") ?

all the best.markj

600 then compound from memory

Steve Larner

[boslab]

That will give you very shiny scratches. We mirror polish the inside of the UV chambers to 15 µm (16RA") then electropolish, you can see you face like a mirror. The outside we do with 120 grit and it is very bright but full of lines and no reflection.

The process also increases corrosion resistance.

Steve Larner

toilet cleaner in the uk
mark

[QSIMDO]

I may have to see how this would work on the SS exhaust pipes of my bike.
They were never "polished" to begin with so they've gone beyond the amber that SS turns to and are now just brown.

Might prove to be difficult to locate a SS container large enough and CHEAP enough to hold pipes though.

[Evan]

You may be able to at least remove the burnt tarnish by using a sponge that is tied to a stainless steel "paddle" and connecting the positive to the bike and the negative to the paddle. Saturate the sponge and wipe the sponge slowly over the pipes. Simple tarnish comes off in seconds so far as I have seen to date. I am going out to do some more experimenting shortly and will see how it works on burnt SS.

I'll be posting the micrographs a bit later too.

[lazlo]

The most Fogbuster can do is issue a cease and desist order. They haven't lost any revenue so they can't sue for damages.

They can sue you for the cost of a FogBuster. By building, and using, the FogBuster described in their patent, you have deprived them of $500 of revenue.

Very unlikely, but if you have a thread with 30 posts, like we had on PM, where everyone was showing their copy of FogBuster's patent...

[hoof]

Count me in as intrested, With nothing to add I to will use my refind command of the english language and say nothing at all.

Hoof

[Weston Bye]

Evan,
Haven't anything to add, except that I am interested in your outcome working with aluminum.

[Blueskys]

It draws directly from electroplating which goes back to the Babylonians so there is a very large body of prior art.

I wonder what the Babyloners used for the electro part of the plating
process. Some kind of chemical/battery reaction?

Great discussion. A humbling reminder of how little I know/understand about
so many things.

EDIT: Persian Batteries made of clay with iron and copper for anode/cathode and vinegar
for electrolyte? Remnants have been found but some dispute over whether
they were actually electrical devices.

[Michael Hall]

There is a good post on rec.crafts.metalworking discussing this very subject, it is from a few years ago. If my link does not work search RCM using "electropolishing recipes" the author is Carl Ijames.

http://tiny.cc/PAqXj

Michael