There's also another, in this case sixth, element to this equation: time. While this type of conversion (in this case, reduction) won't take as long as it took for oxidation to pock the edges of that Stromberg baseplate, it will take a few hours of waiting on your part. Personal experience has proven that this is a process best left to an overnight plunge (once again, see "Safety and Disposal" sidebar for additional information). If you can fight your instant gratification urges, you'll reward yourself with a near-effortless means to effectively eliminate rust without damaging yourself, your parts, or the world around you.
Safety And Disposal We tout the safety of this method, which it is safe, but since we live in such a sue-happy culture, let me make the following disclaimer: Nothing is 100-percent safe. Nothing. Get it? Not even this. This process presents two remotely potential hazards: electrical and explosion (well, your unsupervised toddler could drown in the electrolyte solution, but we're giving you the benefit of the doubt there).
The first one should be obvious; you can electrocute yourself with the primary (110-volt) side of a battery charger, and you can cause a lead-acid battery to explode if you short the terminals. Letting the energized charger terminals touch or touching them with wet hands while standing barefoot in a puddle ain't a good idea either. The gas part is a little less obvious. Electrolysis generates very small quantities of hydrogen and oxygen, and we know what hydrogen did to the Hindenburg, right? While the chances are slim that you'll generate enough hydrogen to pose any risk (you probably generate a greater amount of flammable gas after a night of chasing pickled eggs with beer), it goes without saying you should conduct this operation in a well-ventilated area.
While you'll probably keep your electrolyte bucket full for future projects (simply replenish it with water), theoretically there's nothing wrong or illegal about dumping it down the drain. The electrolyte is nothing more than rust flakes floating around in watered-down old-fashioned phosphate-free laundry detergent. Things change, however, once you plunge greasy parts into the bucket. Disposing of oil down a drain is not only illegal; it's bad practice that makes us car people easy targets for do-gooders. If you must treat greasy parts, simply boil out the water from the solution and submit the sludge to an approved disposal site.
The same goes for what you use for anodes. While stainless anodes don't crumble away as readily as plain steel or iron ones do, they dissolve nonetheless. When they do, they release the heavy metal alloying agents like chromium, manganese, and nickel that give stainless its rust-free properties. Like oil, those elements are illegal and potentially hazardous to dispose of down the drain.
Hydrogen EmbrittlementElectrolytic processes like this and others like chrome-, zinc-, and nickel-plating create a condition where excess hydrogen atoms work their way among the crystalline matrixes of iron-based metals and interfere with those crystals' relationships. It's called hydrogen embrittlement and, as its name suggests, it makes metal brittle, and brittle metal fails prematurely. Hydrogen embrittlement isn't isolated to electrolytic processing either; pickling, or acid stripping, causes the same condition.
While this condition doesn't necessarily jeopardize non-load-bearing parts like brackets and mechanisms, it can affect springs and it poses a pretty serious breakage risk if present in highly critical load-bearing components like spindles and steering components. While baking parts at a particular temperature for a calculated time can reverse this condition, its reliable application is a science governed by many variables, including metal alloys, the part's cross section, and the severity of the condition. It's for those reasons that we do not advocate electrolytic processing such critical parts at home. That's a process best left to specialists in the plating and metal processing industry. Even then, we'd want to see objective proof from a vendor before plating something as critical as a spindle or pitman arm.
We can, however, use a crude form of this baking process to reduce or even eliminate hydrogen embrittlement from vulnerable yet non-critical components like mechanism springs. According to professionals in the plating industry, baking a part for at least three hours at temperatures between 375- to 400-degrees Fahrenheit eliminates most of the excessive hydrogen. They suggest baking parts within an hour of the electrolytic or pickling process for best results and stress keeping the temperature below the 400-degree mark, since higher temperatures may affect a metal's temper. We just ask that you perform the electrolytic process to non-critical parts. Pretty please?