Aging Objects with Electrolysis

In my previous post I described how I used electrolysis to clean the rust from an old hand plane. During that process I observed the violent corrosion of the anode. In 24 hours in the electrolytic bath it aged considerably to the point of looking really old.

After doing some research I realized that most - if not all - types of metal corrosion are due to some form of electrolysis or another. In fact many sources state that electrolysis and corrosion are one and the same in the sense that there wouldn't be any metal corrosion without an electrolytic process of some kind.

That gave me the idea of using electrolysis to attempt to recreate the charm and beauty of a corroded metallic object. In other words, could I take a brand new metallic object and corrode it with electrolysis to the point of acquiring, in just a few hours, a much older look? What would I learn in the process? There was only a way to find out.

The first step was to find a suitable metallic object that would seem to benefit from an aged look. On my way back to work I stopped at a thrift store and bought a couple of metallic candlesticks for about $2.00. Here is a picture of how they looked as purchased:

I decided to experiment only on one of them in order to maintain a "before" and "after" live comparison throughout the process. I prepared an electrolytic bath using an old tin can without top or bottom as the cathode - that is, connected to the negative pole a battery charger - and the candlestick as the anode - connected to the positive of the same battery charger.

As an electrolyte I decided to use water and a generous amount of table salt. While I usually use washing soda to electrolytically clean objects, I thought that using salt for this corrosion experiment would be better since salt is notoriously harsh on metal and might give better results when the goal is to destroy.

I prepared the electrolyte in a one gallon plastic bucket, placed the tin can in the electrolyte, and the candlestick inside the can resting on the bottom of the bucket. Since the can had the bottom removed, there was no contact between the two and the candlestick was completely surrounded by the anode, which aids to the process.

I then connected the tin can to the negative of a 10Amps battery charger, and the positive to the candlestick. Immediately after turning on the charger, hydrogen and oxygen bubbles started pouring out the metal confirming that the electrolytic process had started (hydrogen and oxygen are an explosive mixture in the right circumstances, so do not try this at home without proper research and precautions).

Here is a photo of how the setup looked after one hour:

You can see the electrolyte covered by corroded metal sludge.

After one hour I decided to take a peek. As you can see from the below photo of a side-to-side comparison between the corroded candlestick (left) and the untouched one (right), the surface coating - made of either zinc or silver I assume - had gone, revealing the real nature of the core metal: copper.

While this was a decent result, I wanted to bring the process much further so I reconnected the candlestick, submerged it in the electrolyte inside the tin can and started the electrolysis again. This time I let it go for 24 hours.

The next day I checked, and here is how it came out after a good rinse in water and some light scrubbing:

 

Looks interesting and certainly very old. Note toward the top a series of small holes that show how much corrosion the metal went through in only 24 hours. Some close ups:

 

This is an interesting look, and it certainly looks old. However it looks "dirty". This might or might not be a good thing depending on what the desired look is. I considered leaving this as-is, but I was curious to see how the piece would look cleaned up of the greenish product of the copper corrosion.

After a few minutes with a brush wheel, here is the clean result:

 

So, what do you think? Do you prefer the original? or the lightly corroderd? Or the heavily corroded "dirty"? Or the heavily corroded "clean"?

 

Restoring a Handplane With Electrolysis

I recently put my hands on a couple of vintage Stanley Planes. I purchased them used for very little money, and they were very rusty.

I used a process of electrolysis to remove the rust and bring them back to bare metal, and the results where pretty spectacular. If I believed in magic, I would certainly think that it was magical.

Here is the the Stanley #6 plane as I acquired it:

This particular plane was produced sometimes after 1933 and before WWII. The kidney bean shaped hole in the lever cap, the brass blade depth adjustment and the front tote color are this plane age giveaways, along of various other smaller details.

The plane was in good shape, but unfortunately it was covered in rust. The bottom (which I unfortunately I do not have a photo of) was completely red. The rust didn't ruine the integrity of the metal, but it made the plane pretty useless without a good restoration.

First step was to take the plane apart, separating all its parts so that they could be processed separately.

The second step was to remove the rust from all metal parts with electrolysis. Electrolysis is an electrochemical process that consists in connecting a metallic object - something rusty that you want to clean - to the negative pole of a battery changer and submerge it in an electrolyte such as water and washing soda. In the electrolytic process you call this object connected to the negative pole the cathode. The positive pole of the charger is connected to some sacrificial metal - rebars or an old coffee can or example - and also submerged in the electrolyte surrounding the object to clean. You call the sacrificial metal the anode, and it will get corroded heavily during the process. You don't want to screw up positive with negative here!! If you do instead of cleaning the object, you'll destroy it.

For this plane I used as an anode some rebars bolted to the sides of a plastic tub, and a steel plate sitting on the bottom. I suspended the plane with fishing line to ensure that it wouldn't touch the rebars or the plate, which is most important to avoid a short which would not only stop the process but also create an hazardous situation and most likely damage the battery charger.

It is important that the anode (sacrificial metal) and the cathode (object to clean) "see" each other. The process works only in a light of side. Whatever part of the cathode is not in line of sight with the anode, will not get cleaned.

For this plane I used a 12V 2A battery charger an I allowed the electrolysis to run for about 24 hours. The charger must be a cheap manual kind, and not a fancy automatic kind. Since you are not actually charging a battery, any smarts built in the charger will get in the way of the process.

Here is a photo of the plane body immersed in the electrolyte at the very beginning of the process.

You might noticed the bubble coming out on the sides of the plane, and here is a close up:

That's the hydrogen that is formed as product of the electrochemical reaction caused by the current. The rebars also release bubbles of oxygen. The result is a nice mix of oxygen and hydrogen that could become a nasty explosive if you let it accumulate. Ventilation is key to avoid dangerous situations and if you are ever going to do this, you should do it outside.

After the 24 hours bath, it took some brushing, re-painting and sharpening of the blade... and here is a good-as-new Stanley #6, tuned up, wicked sharp and able to take very fine wood shavings.

And the rust free corrugate sole:

The electrolytic process worked like magic and for a few dollars I ended up with a nice and functional tool that I'll use for many years in the workshop.

If you decide to do something similar to this, make sure to do your homework and read all you can about the process. There are many more details and safety considerations that you need to know before trying to do this.

Further reading:

• Hand plane restoration: part 1, part 2, part 3;
• Electrolytic rust removal instructable;
• Removing rust with electrolysis;
• Electrolytic rust removal;
• Hand plane restoration;

Photography Blog

I used to have a separate photography blog on Blogger, but it didn't work well for me because it had no real integration with my main photography site. Different look and feel, hard to link together and required double of the work to maintain.

I ended up using Flickr as a way to publish and describe images as a surrogate for a blogging service in an environment conductive to photographers. That also took a lot of effort because - again - there was little connection between the main photography site and Flickr.

However, last week Zenfolio released a blog service to their line-up. Zenfolio is the company I use to host my photography, and I have been very happy with them. With his new offering I was able to integrate my photography site and my photography blog into one place.

The blogging feature integrates into the site, and is very simple but very effective. It has just the right features for what I need to do, and it comes to not extra cost for the Zenfolio customer. I've been using them for 3 years now, and they keep exceeding my expectations over and over again. A great company, and a great service.

Synchronizing Your Computers Painlessly

I have been a long time user of Dropbox, and I am very fond of it. If you are not familiar with it, Dropbox is a FREE service that allows you to share a directory on multiple computers and it also functions as a cloud backup service for that directory and as a revision control system for it too.

You signup for DropBox and install their client on your computers and mobile devices. Then you choose a directory to share and voila', from that moment on any file that you copy to that directory will be synchronized across all your computers and devices completely transparently and without using much resources on your machines at all. DropBox will keep a copy in the cloud, and will also keep many revisions so you can always go back to something that you deleted or changed by mistake.

I use it all the time for my photography when I am on the go for multiple days. I bring a few memory cards just enough for a day of shooting. At the end of the day I drop the photos into my Dropbox directory on my laptop and I clean my memory cards and keep on shooting. When I get home after several days the photos are not only on my laptop, but also on all the other computers I have, and a copy is safe on the DropBox servers too.

I also use DropBox for sharing configurations across my machines and keep them all in sync.


I use mostly Mac OS these days; at work I have MacBook Pro, and at home an iMac. I work in terminal all the time, and quite often I make adjustments to my ~/.profile to add paths, change my prompt, set configurations, etc. I also have a set of scripts that I wrote that I use all the time.

I like consistency, and I hate making the same changes on many machines to keep the same configuration between work and home.

To solve this problem, I added this line on my .profile file on all my Macs:

source ~/Dropbox/lorenzo/shell_settings

Then I put all the settings that I like to share in the ~/Dropbox/lorenzo/shell_settings file, which for me looks something like this:

alias dir="ls -l"
PS1="[\u@\h:\w]\$ "
export PATH=$PATH:~/Dropbox/bin/tools

And voila', on all my machines I now have "dir" do what I expect, my prompt look pretty and a handy shared directory where I keep my scripts across my machines. The scripts are on Dropbox too, and in this case I not only get the benefits of having the same version everywhere, but it also functions as source control for any modification I make over time.

Dropbox is available on Windows, Mac, Unix and mobile devices and.... it is FREE for 2Gb. I pay for 50Gb which is only a well worth $99/year. You have got to try it, it will change the way you deal with multiple computers and it will make thumb drives feel like prehistoric technology.

Google Calculator

Google is not only a search engine.

Did you know that you can use Google as a unit/currency converter and multi-unit/currency calculator?

Examples:

Forgot how many cups in a teaspoon? Try typing "1 cup in tsp" as a Google search to get an answer.
Do you want to know how many seconds in a year? Try to search for "year in seconds".
Do you want to know the area in square feet of 3 meters * 1 cm ? Try "(3 m * 1 cm) in feet^2"
Do you want to know how much is a British pounds in dollars? Try "1 British Pounds in USD"
Do you want to know how much is a dollar in whatever currency they have in China? Try "1 USD in Chinese money"

Splitting of the Red Sea

My latest sculpture. I found this piece of wood in the woods. It had been there probably 5 years or so. Then I dried it for 3 years in my workshop, and finally cleaned it, sculpted it and made it into this piece.

DreamBox Learning Shipped Today!

Today we officially launched DreamBox Learning K-2 Math, a Math Learning Game that is now available to help kids learn, enjoy, and excel at math!

Every day we receive fan mail from parents and teachers who tell us heart-warming success stories of kids playing DreamBox, from struggling learners to advanced achievers. The combination of our individual adaptations, in-depth math curriculum, and game-like adventures is working! We are actually “doing good” for the world! And of course I’ve seen how much my own children like it and learn.

Here is a product tour video! Check it out!



Here are a few ways to help us build the buzz:

• If you have kids in the right age group, please do try DreamBox
• Recommend it to your friends (and earn free months in our invite-a-friend program!)
• Write about it to your local Mom’s group or PTSA group
• Give it as a gift
• Blog about it
• Forward this information to anyone

Starbucks Speaks Italian, or not...

It seems like writing Italian phrases and words is now considered somehow a "touch of class" in many coffee stores, restaurants and other commercial establishments. I find it flattering and I have no problems with it. I share this love for the Italian language.
On the other hand, I find it embarrassing for the people or corporations that spend time and money to write enormous phrases in Italian on their precious wall space when the phrase itself contains elementary school level spelling mistakes. Ouch!
Now, I do not claim that my English is perfect; far from it as you can see. However, rest assured that if I had to write a huge four words phrase in any language in my hypothetical coffee shop, I would make pretty darn sure I got the spelling correct! Especially if I use such word to try elevating the elegancy of the place!
Now check out this "thing" that I saw, and took a picture of, in a Starbucks near where I live:





This phrase is about 6-7 feet long on a wall, and it takes very little to find out that the spelling is WRONG. I could understand the mistake if it was hard to verify... however, it takes only 30 seconds to find out that there is a problem. The easiest way is to search for this exact phrase in Google. At the time I wrote this post there were only 8 results for this, all from pages with spelling mistakes, and Google even offers a different spelling. Note how it says: Did you mean: "La macchina del caffe". Well, click on that link and now you get 4,000 matches. Not bad. A quick look at the italian dictionary will confirm that "Macchina" is the correct spelling! Not the huge wall-inscribed "machina", which is an embarassment for Starbucks. YUK!

The children know

A quote that inspired me.

"The children know. They have always known. But we choose to think otherwise; it hurts to know the children know. The children see. Thus we conspire to keep them from knowing and seeing. And if we insist, then the children, to please us, will make believe they do not know, they do not see. Children make that sacrifice for our sake - to keep us pacified. They are remarkably patient, loving and all-forgiving. It is a sad comedy: the children knowing and pretending they don't know to protect us from knowing they know."

( Maurice Sendak )

Conception of a Bird

This is my first Driftwood sculpture. I called it "Conception of a Bird". It represents a frozen beginning stage of the forming of an image or idea of a bird in the human mind.

Title: Conception of a Bird.
Wood: Unknown Driftwood. Possibly some kind of root.
Base: Peruvian Black Walnut. Turned.
Finish: Natural Danish Oil & Beeswax.
Time from start to finish: About 15 hours in the span of several weeks.

Driftwood and the LuRon method.

Driftwood is wood that has been washed onto a shore or beach, of a sea or river, by the action of winds, tides or waves. It often appears white, weathered and rotting. For some people it is simply junk, and often a nuisance. For others it contains a piece of art. As anything else in life, it all depends on what you can see in it. Sculptors see beautiful shapes in stone or other materials; similarly a driftwood artist sees the beauty in the forms of naturally shaped and weathered wood.

Hard to believe for most, but inside most pieces of driftwood lays a beautiful piece of wood with fantastic grain and colors. Lucile Worlund discovered this fact about 40 years ago and created an art form. She was so fascinated by the interesting shapes of driftwood and its inner beauty, that she defined a process to transform it into sculpture, and trademarked unde the name of "LuRon method".

Her method is aimed to remove the weathered part of the wood, scrape and cut off all the dead cells and rotting material, polish it, burnish it with deer antlers and finish it with beeswax or penetrating oils and mount it for display. The result is a clean piece of solid wood which beautiful and complex shape is often the result of the natural sculpting process enhanced by the artists, and which grain, patterns and colors are simply magnificent. The job of the driftwood artist is to find a piece with potential, discover the inner beauty and enhance it to transmit an emotion or a concept. Some examples of LuRon-method sculptures can be seen here.

The method is extremely natural, and it can be carried using simple tools, although you can get very sophisticated. The process is almost a form of meditation that brings you closer to nature and leads you to a journey into the inner beauty of raw natural materials. It’s almost a demonstration of how anything can become a wonderful piece of art, if polished by the hands of a skilled artist.

Driftwood assumes amazing and complex shapes. I have a theory why that is so common. You have to know that most wood has internal tension, and that tension sometimes is very strong; in fact it’s not uncommon that, when you cut a thick piece of wood, the wood snaps or binds the cutting blade as the result of release of that tension. As a piece of driftwood rots from the water or weather exposed layers, it stays solid in the inside. The tension of the inside solid material, overpowers the strength of the rotting material, and starts contorting the whole piece into very interesting shapes.

The LuRon method is native of the Pacific Northwest. The official website for the Northwest Driftwood Artists association, founded by Lucile Worlund, is http://www.geocities.com/northwestdriftwood/. You won’t find much information on this method on the net or in books. The only book that I know talks about LuRon is Driftwood Sculpture: From Finding to Fine Finishing (Paperback), and it’s not easy to obtain. I ordered a copy from amazon 2 months ago, and still waiting for it.

I am currently taking a class on the LuRon method. If you want to know more about it, feel free to ask. I may publish more details.