New type of patina!

D

dalee100

Joined
Mar 15, 2008
Messages
1,539
Hi,

I was cleaning a copper plated battery terminal on a vehicle with my Boker Barlow. It had a lot of that green cruft on it. After scraping as much off as I could, I just wiped the blade clean and dry and dropped it in my pocket.

The next day I reached into my pocket for it and when I opened it up I was surprised to see a shiny copper film covering the blade, (C75 carbon). It wears off easily and is thin.

100_7064.jpg


I've cleaned a lot of battery terminals over the years and I've never had one copper plate. Anybody else have this happen?

dalee
 
I've never seen a copper plated blade aftter cleaning a battery but everytime I mess with batterys an solonoid switches I burn my blade into so I learned to use a wire brush :)
 
dalee100 said:
I've cleaned a lot of battery terminals over the years and I've never had one copper plate. Anybody else have this happen?
Click to expand...

I've never done it to a knife, but when I was younger I would do that to nails by dipping them in a copper sulfate solution. That's what the green stuff that forms when sulfuric acid hits copper is. I never could figure out a way to make it stick though.
 
Hum? That makes me wonder! Also I have always seen batteries cleaned with wire brushes but anyway use that knife when you can. :D
 
Just don't go doing any food prep with that knife:barf::D

Interesting tint though.
 
I normally just boil the kettle and pour it over the terminal and all the gunk is removed then I add copper grease.

Richard
 
Hi,

I would have preferred a different tool for cleaning the terminal, but we were trying to cover a second ambulance call with a rescue/troop hauler truck. (We only have one ambulance). It got us there but died while idling on scene, too many radios and other electric items. So any tool that works right? It was actually the last call that truck will ever be used for. We replaced it with a better one just this week.

Hey willgoy, you want a slice of apple? Just cut one off with it.:D It is an interesting effect though. No offense to anyone, but I really like "earned" patina best.

dalee
 
Keep in mind that copper will corrode steel like no one's business. Look up Galvanic Corrosion. That's the reason if you transition from copper pipe to black iron pipe you need a brass fitting between them. Make sure you get that plating off your blade (although it does look cool).
 
That is interesting Dalee. Over the years I bet I've used a knife somewhere between 30 & 50 times to clean a battery post. And I've never had anything like you discribed happen until this past fall. I was using the leather punch on 1 of Charlie's Harness Jacks. I scraped the post, closed the Jack & stuck it back in my pocket. In the next day or 2 when I had an occasion to use the pnch again, there it was, about 1/4 copper plated!! It has been that way for months now with no problem to the steel.
What was odd to me was the "plating " was down by the tang not up on the edge I was scraping with.


Dave
 
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