I got a new 3500 W, 240 V element to replace my 1800 W, 120 V element to try slower runs. With all the zinc talk I thought I'd post a few pics to show how easy it is to clean up a new plated element.
Here is a pic of the element straight out of the package
I placed the element in my hydrometer cylinder with spent wash from a previous run. Of course if this is your first element you won't have spent wash but you could use lemon juice or a teaspoon of citric acid. This picture is 48 hours later...definately oxidized.
And this last pic is the 5th day. I took it out of the wash and gave it a quick wipe down with a brillo pad to clean off any loose oxidation. I'm sure the process would have been alot faster had the element been heated as in use.
Light travels faster than sound. That is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
Wow, that's a nice shiny element! And here I've been all looking around for stainless elements for my new still... looks like this is the way to go, though i do like the idea of going all stainless (Edit: all stainless boiler, copper vapor/condenser of course)
pH of wash is probably surprisingly acidic. Doesn't matter though, just about any acidic solution will do, just don't use one too strong and walk off to come back to a container of blue solution with no element in it
Well, actually were you to strip off the copper, you'd get ceramic, but I don't know anything about how the element would run then or if it would be in any way waterproof.
Hay Grayson, I have just had my elements in water in my boiler, and had them on, and they are no longer shiney, is that good enough to clean them up at this point with a wire brush? or do I need to place them into something like lemon juice, or tomato juice of some sort to get that coating off??
Don't take them to a wire brush. Copper is soft and a wire brush will damage the copper coating, especially if you mean a wire brush in a drill or bench grinder. All elements are delicate and fragile and you don't want to damage them and a steal wire brush will do just that. Just do as Grayson described and and you should be fine. Even when I need to scrub mine after running molasses I always use a copper scrubber, not stainless because that way I am dealing with two soft metals instead of a hard metal scrapping at a soft metal.
... I say God bless you, I don't say bless you ... I am not the Lord, I can't do that ... Dane Cook
Citric acid is a great way to clean up copper not only is it good for stripping the plating off the element-it will remove the patina on oxidized copper too. It is also good for cleaning stainless steel. It is used in industry to "passivate" the stainless. Meaning it removes free iron from the surface of the stainless and makes it further resistant to corrosion and pitting. I made a couple of copper reflux stills, where I tig welded several joints which left much of the copper oxidized. I used a battery charger and a steel wool pad wrapped in a rag soaked in citric acid solution to electroclean the column. It worked like a charm and it was really cool. (hook positive lead to part you are cleaning and negative to the steel wool and don't electrocute yourself) a similar method should accelerate the stripping of the plating I will try this out with an element I have and report back again.
I tried the electrocleaning method for stripping the element I had, and the method was excellent. I used pH 1.9 citric acid solution, and it took only 1 hour! with 275ma current. I ended up with a shiny copper element in short order. If you want to try to repeat my experiment a "c" or "D" flashlight battery would probably produce sufficent output. hook the positive lead to the element and the negative to a bit of wire in the citric acid solution- I used a small coil of copper wire for my cathode(-). I would put up a picture if I could figure out how to attach one.[/img]
