The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Using Lye to remove paint?

Hi All,

Plan is to use electrolysis to remove rust from my bumper brackets, but I thought first I might soak them in drano to loosen the paint and any undercoating. Will that help? How much drano to 5 or 10 gallons of water? I know to wear gloves and goggles around that stuff. Last part I did electrolysis on still has some paint and undercoating on despite going for 1 or 2 days & I brush off the re-bar every 8 to 12 hours. So I'm hoping to speed things up a bit with a pre-soak.

Is it Ok to add drano right into the electrolysis bath with washing soda also? That might stop me from sticking my whole arm in to clean 30" long pieces of re-bar, but would work on the smaller stuff

electrolysis will have no effect on sound paint, it's a corrosion removal technique only .... real bad idea to mix home brews of chemicals - Drano is 3 sodium chemicals [along with aluminum], that creates heat in combination with water, as well as hydrogen gas, NOT what you want at the business end of the battery charger, or for stripping paint - try some paint stripper, and rinse it off well before the electrolytic bath

Bill

I thought Drano no longer contained lye?

I used Drano to strip a license plate and it worked well however as Bill stated it creates heat, gas and smells. I wouldn't think of using with a battery charger. There are much better avenues to use nowdays. Only advantage to using Drano is the disposal after using. Just flush!!
Dan

I bought some liquid drain cleaner that contained sodium hydroxide and potassium hydroxide. I put 2 cups of that with 3 gallons of water and 2 bumper brackets. Here are some before/after pictures following a 2 or 3 hour soak. Worked pretty well.

http://good-times.webshots.com/photo/2492723160101537469khMMoL

http://good-times.webshots.com/photo/2681489900101537469zKrhcw

It seems Red Devil has quit making lye. I found some sources on the web, but I'll call some places around here and see what I can find. Box stores didn't have any.

Well I taint done my composition for this morning so I guess this is a good enough place to get it done.
I have to agree with the other guys on the paint striper. I pick up Mar-Hyde Tal-Strip II, Aircraft Coating Remover at F&F and it’s relatively inexpensive. Spray it on, wipe it off in 5 or 10 min. no problems disposing of it either. Next morning the pile of paint is just a lump of dried up paint.
Lye was about the only option years ago but with the new chemicals available today I don’t see any reason to use a caustic product like lye.
Oh and if it makes any difference, I strip, scrub with detergent, remove rust by method of choice, scrub with detergent then finish.
Looking at your bumper brackets Eric, they are in great shape, I simply would have taken them to the pedestal grinder with a wire wheel, scrubbed them with detergent and finished.

Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

Drano IS lye [sodium hydroxide], with some other things added, and considering the hazards of it, there's just no reason to use it for a job easily done by friendlier methods ... in addition, sodium hydroxide is highly corrosive and isn't corrosion our biggest problem with this old tin?

Bill