1903 Bayonet repair and rust removal....

[bigduke6]

Regarding the title I,m reluctant to use the word restoration after the excellent work thats been done recently on the Halftrack and the Kettenkrad in the Vintage Military Vehicle forum.

Anyway I bought this as the price was right and its possible it would clean up with electrolysis, Its the first time I,d used this as I normally boil rusty bits/parts ect in distilled water and then clean off.

The pics don't really show how bad the bayonet was but the bad parts were the pommel and cross guard with years of rust covered over by oil, polish, linseed oil ? Its whats now known in most descriptions regarding rust covered objects as "as a nice patina"

So some pics below of what I started out with







After removal of the grips, one was still good to go, the other well think the pic says it all, easy enough to make also new screws to be sought or made.

For the electrolysis, Its very basic you need a car/motorcycle battery charger a plastic tub big enough for the item and also a sacrificial anode (scrap piece of steel) and washing powder.

Plenty of clips of the process on youtube, WARNING you must do it outside as the only bad bit is the hydrogen gas that is given off.

Fill the tub with water and about half a cup of washing powder, place anode in the tub it needs to be sticking out of the water to place the positive lead on to it.

Place object (the bayonet) in water completely submerged with the negative lead attached, the object and anode need to be positioned so as not to touch each other.

Pic below shows bayonet in the water along with anode and connected up the charger just a case of switching it on.




I left it a few hours and had a quick a check, certainly working well and also cleaned off the anode, did this about 3 times during the process, total of about 14 hours ....

Results were excellent, had to clean it off lightly with a wire brush but all the rust was gone some bad pitting were the grips would go so no dramas there, also a bit on the cross guard.







As its had a hard life already I thought I,d dip it in a black oxide solution to get the required finish I was after, with this you can get good results that resemble the original finish, after the initial dip it comes out like new but its not what I was after so with a slight rub with a scouring pad around the edges the edges it gives it that used look.

I lost the pics of this but the solution is in the link below,

Black Oxide Kits - Caswell

after this it was a case of making the grip to replace the broken one,









The other pics of the finished bayonet along with the new screws have gone awol so will have to add these at a later date if I can find them, but all in all very happy with the electrolysis process.

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