On Sun, 13 Sep 2009 14:25:16 -0500, Puddin' Man wrote:
I have a large plastic Muck Bucket and an 8 Amp (max) 12v trickle charger.
Thinking of using a steel water pipe for an anode.

Could use washing soda or maybe lye (if I can find it) for electrolyte.
Which would be better for removing both rust and old paint?

JOOI, what is the exact process? I'd always been told to use sacrificial
anodes for rusty parts - and have done it several times - but the
wikipedia entry seems to suggest that it only works to protect the cathode
material against corrosion, rather than removing existing corrosion
(almost implying that all that happens is that a new layer of material
gets dumped onto the cathode material, trapping the actual rust beneath?)

How long might it take to do such a job?

Varies, I suppose. Last time I did it was on some big old chest handles a
few years ago (same sort of setup as you, 12V capable of around 8A), and
it ran for about 12 hours before it "looked" good. I honestly can't
remember what I used for electrolyte now, though :-(

cheers

Jules