[TheForge] Electrolytic rust reclaiming

Tue Oct 29 15:54:00 2002

Bruce, Dave;

  Thanks... that is what I suspected also.  This particular machine
that he is most concerned about is a planer. He has a stand of woods
that he scrounges dead trees out of, has them rough sawn and stacks
them to air dry.  Then he planes them to size and makes some pretty
fancy furniture from the wood. His woods seems to have an unusual
number of trees that have seen some kind of stress, he gets lots of
highly figured wood from them.

   The "ways" are actually "spindles", vertical, so if we can get the
rust converted, I think they would hold up as the weight of the head
is not really on them.  I already fixed him up with a small heat
source and covered it, so it's not continuing to rust. I think we can
assume that if it isn't loose enough to cause chatter, there's no
problem.

   Thanks again...

   Jeff   ><>

From: "Dave Brown" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2002 2:19 PM
Subject: Re: [TheForge] Electrolytic rust reclaiming

> At 12:53 10/29/02 -0500, you wrote:
> >I'm no expert on this.  I'm only applying my knowledge of
chemistry.
> >
> >Iron III oxide is red.  Iron II oxide is black.  Rust is iron III
oxide,
> >Fe2O3.  Scale is iron II oxide, FeO.  I SUSPECT the black is FeO.
>
> This is consistent with what my brother-in-law the family
electro-chemist
> says.  The red oxide (rust) gets converted to free oxygen and black
oxide
> (same as fire scale).  The further reduction of this black oxide to
iron
> requires a lot more energy than you use in the electrolytic rust
reduction
> process ... he says you pretty much have to go through the smelting
process
> to get rid of the remaining oxygen atom and leave the iron behind.
>
> The good part about the black oxide residue is that it's light and
not
> tightly bound to the surface and brushes/wipes/washes off quite
easily.
>
>
> Dave Brown
> Heritage Smithing
> Green Bay, WI
> ABANA, UMBA, GoM, MODA, ARG
>
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