Rust, Electrolysis and Paint

When I took this bike apart, I couldn't have imagined the amount of rust that had collected on the components of this bike. (Maybe it's because this is my first mechanical endeavor). Most of it has been surface, but the battery box was a little more than surface. 

I found an article about electrolysis and thought I would give it a shot. It worked wonders. Here is a picture and a movie. You can see bubbles from the reaction in the movie. It was a simple process, I took two old iron bolts and attached them to the positive clamp of a car battery charger, the negative clamp went on the piece to be cleaned. I dropped them both in a vat of water and baking soda (1 gal to 1 TBSP) and made sure they weren't touching. Start the flow of electricity at the 2AMP setting and wait a few hours. Voila!

Here is the setup. It is important to keep the area well ventilated, because the reaction gives of hydrogen which is just a wee bit explosive.

This is cool! I turned up the Amperage for the video, but I would not recommend it. If left that way for too long, the paint kind of bubbles off. I am not too sure that it is very good for the metal either. I am going to paint this with undercoating paint if I can find it in an Aluminum or light grey color.