Getting the copper off?

[Robert Luland]

Well I got the ammonia brew a cooking. We shall see. As far as the reverse plating thing goes. Can you use a battery charger as your power source? Bob L

[rwm]

give it a try. i'm gonna try a toy train transformer. just try it on a junk part first.

[Robert Luland]

The part is the least of my worries. My eyes and the shop come first. Bob L

[Robert Luland]

Well I guess its working? The copper is getting lighter and the ammonia has turned blue. Didn’t Ronco make something years ago on tv to take this stuff off?

[Robert Luland]

Time to report on the science project. It works. Ammonia does take off copper. Slowly but it does work. In the picture you can see the air cleaner plate and the oil tank bracket cleaned right up. The battery tie downs are getting there. It not only dissolves it but gets under the plating. When I first pulled it out you could peel some of the copper off. Still haven’t been able to get it out of the cracks were the flag is spot welded to the shaft. This is the place that keeps showing up in the Parkerizing pot. Man! All this experament’en makes a guy thirsty! Later! Bob L

[exeric]

Wow! Fantastic news Bob. I'm going to get some ammonia and get that process started. Thanks for commiting to the experiment.

[rwm]

i got some chrome sitting in a brew of lye. it was hard to find a piece of chrome to sacrifiece but we will see how it goes

[rwm]

after 5 days the chrome is starting to fizz

[Robert Luland]

Well boys it’s been 52 days and three ammonia changes into the experiment. I deleted the last picture off Photobucket not realizing that it goes back there to retrieve every time you open the thread. Today I pull’em out and no copper. I Going to do one more time around in the beader for good measure and tomorrow into the soup. Sure would be nice to have a happy ending. I will do the final report tomorrow. Bob L

[Robert Luland]

Hold the presses. Soon as I beaded them the copper showed up in the creases. Back into the stew pot with'em. I'll let ya know in three weeks. Bob L

[exeric]

Bob, do you think the amonia would get under chrome and nickel to remove the copper? I was wondering if that would work on a beat-up chromed part that has copper and bare steel showing.

[Robert Luland]

Eric as I said earlier. The ammonia seem to get under the copper plating as I was peeling pieces off. No matter what I do I can’t seem to get it out of the weld seams. I beaded this to no end and it’s still there. If the ammonia doesn’t work this time I’m just going to lightly weld over the seams. The ammonia seams to work really well on big fat areas as you can see in the photo. Bob L

[Chris Haynes]

Somewhere, someplace I have an article from a very old Australian motorcycle magazine that has a formula for removing copper and chrome. It is a mixture of fertilizer and diesel. I know, it sounds like Tim McViegh at work. You mixed the two and used a trickle charger to strip metal bare.

[rousseau]

hey Bob
I can't tell from your pics but, are you sure your not seeing brass in the seams. lot of brackets were Brazed on back in the day.

[rwm]

ammonia will remove brass also. it wont work on chrome i have tried that. i tried chrome in lye and nothing came off .my plater claims i did it wrong. so i will try again in a bigger vat of lye. first time i used a mason jar. this time i will use a 1gallon bucket