Mad Scientist

 Well I went and won an online auction for a 80-100 year old washing mangle. 

The plan is to convert it into a printing press for my lino-cut prints and all going well it should be able to do etchings as well. Picked it up on the weekend... with alot of help to get it into the car. She ways in pretty heavy and took three of us to get it in and out of the car. The whole thing works to a point, but is rusty and dirty as and the ancient paint is.. well 100 odd years old. So after watching a few YouTube videos I decided to give electrolysis cleaning a go on the small parts to start with.

I feel like a mad scientist, que the work place hazard nightmare setup. Live current running though exposed copper wire. Anyway the soda crystal and water mix, 12 volts and some steel rods, and the magic just happens.

A quick soap and water scrub of the parts and then into the tank, power on and after only an hour in the tank the grime, grit and dirt started coming off and floating. 

   

After about 2hrs in the tank I took the parts out rinsed them and a 30 second scrub with a wire brush to remove the final little bits of paint. 

I can’t believe how easy it was, so later this week I’ll be upsizing the plastic box to a full sized fish dixie bin that should fit most of the larger parts. The leg frames I'll need to do half at a time, that will be another interesting experiment.

These are two of the cleaned parts that were previous painted and rusty as hell.