Making Homemade Lye

I have had some questions on this subject so I will give a more detailed instruction. I have used this method for quite a while until I found the lye at Tractor Supply™ as Roebic™ drain cleaner. But I will still use it once in a while just for kicks. It is nice to be able to make it on your own.

To make your container for the filter and a container to hold it and collect the drainage.
You will need:

A. Five gallon buckets x 2

B. An old wooden broom handle or a 3/4 inch dowel rod long enough to go all the way across the buckets.

C. About 3 gallons of gravel you can get locally at Walmart™ or some garden center.

D. Some yard clippings dried and enough to add a 2 inch layer to the gravel.

E. Some wood ashes, Burn some limbs and also save your charcoal ashes as this was wood before it was made into charcoal. About a five gallon bucket at least half full.

F. An electric drill and a 3/16th drill bit

Start by cutting holes in opposite sides of one bucket a little above halfway down.
To get this right you can set it into the other bucket and pick it up slightly and mark the sides.
We will call this our filter bucket.
Take the dowel rod and or the broom handle and size the holes for either one of the rods.

Turn this filter bucket upside down and lay out a pattern on the bottom of it in a star pattern.
Like you were going to slice up a pie… First in quarters and then split the quarters up. You should end up with about 8 lines splitting the bottom into sections.

Then take a drill with a 3/16th bit and drill holes into the bottom of this bucket along each one of these lines about 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch apart.

Ok all done?

Now take this filter bucket and set it in the other five gallon bucket.
This bucket will catch the lye solution that runs through our filter bucket.
The rod will keep it from going down.

Fill the bottom of our filter bucket with about 2 inches of gravel evenly.
On top of this lay in a layer of the dried grass about 1 1/2 inches thick evenly.

Now add the ashes on top of the grass. Leave about 2 inches at the top for water.
If you are going to use tap water that has been treated with chlorine from city or county water systems then you will have to leave it set open for a couple of days in the sun in order for the chlorine to evaporate off. It is best to use rain water or bottled distilled water. Rain water is free and free is what we are looking for.

Pour this water into the filter bucket with our ashes and filter setup. Use your own judgment on when is enough. If it runs over the top you have used to much.

Let it seep through the ashes and add more water if needed keeping in mind not to dilute the lye water to much. Let it sit a day or two until all of the water has run through the filter.

What you will end up with is lye water in the collection bucket and this will need to be evaporated down to concentrate it. When it is right it will float an egg.

Now you can use this to make your electrolyte for your homemade hydrogen cell.
When you mix this for your hydrogen cells it will not take much.

If you have a way of checking the amp draw on your homemade cell mix up enough lye to bring it to 15 or 20 amps and use a PWM to control the power to the cell.

Now if you want to make homemade soap I can give you directions for that also. Very cheap to make and you can scent it to make it smell as good as a store bought soap. It will also clean better.

Mike
HHB

Technorati Tags: Charcoal, Charcoal Ashes, Chlorine, Drain Cleaner, Five Gallon Buckets, Lye Solution, potassium hydroxide, Roebic™ drain cleaner, Tractor Supply™, Walmart™, Wood Ashes, Yard Clippings

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2. Mixing Water and Lye for HHO Cells
3. Building A Homemade Hydrogen Generator
4. Spacing of Plates in Homemade HHO Cells
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