Specific question about electroforming....

[Kaizen]

Hey,

I searched but did not find an answer to my specific question.

Today I pulled out my electroforming setup and went to work as usual. My voltages and amps were all over the place! It's been about a month or so since I last used it and everything was fine then. I strained my solution and found these crystals on the bottom of my container.

They are pretty large being found in 1.5 gallons of solution.

http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/bb131/mrp159/ca156ccf.jpg

What are they? Is it the solution in crystal form causing my solution to not be mixed right? Or is my solution bad.

Is there a way to check if my solution is diluted right?

Chemicals are only a few months old.

[Firekist]

Is your solution colder now than when u put it away?
Have you been adding distilled water to the solution to keep its volume the same after every few uses?

If u answered colder and/or no, you've made a "super saturated solution" and some of the copper whatsit(sulphate or phosphate..I forgot) is precipitating out of solution (the crystals are forming). When a solution like this sits still or gets colder, this happens.

Add more distilled h2o to bring the volume back up, and the crystals should disolve. Either that or more acid.. but I don't know what strength the solution should be at.. if u get some litmus paper test strips u could get the pH of your solution and adjust with water or acid ..

Nice crystal photo!
seth

[LFC]

those are pure copper sulphate pentahydrate crystals, this is a normal thing to happen if your solution evaporated some, only the water and acid is evaporating, not the copper sulphate, just top of your container with distilled water and your good to go, depending on how low your solution got depends on how much more acid you should add, if it halved itself ad half the acid or so on, not an exact science but you should add a little more acid....

[Kaizen]

Thanks for the responses.

What type of acid do I add? And what should the ph be?

[re-vit]

sulphuric. add it until the pH reads between 0 and 1 on a pH test strip.
i bet you could electroform with a higher pH, and who knows how accurate my test strips are. i've seen recipes for no acid plating baths but haven't tried them. pretty sure Bandhu makes no mention of acids in Contemporary Lampworking, but i could be wrong...

[barefoot stash]

Just pick up some battery (sulphuric) acid from you local autoparts store. Wear gloves/goggles and make sure you add the acid to your water bath not vise versa or you may get a nasty reaction.

[phishinphree]

Those are pretty crystals. Years ago I would have suggested selling them on dead tour :-/ Not sure they're healthy to handle tho.