# Railroad spike and mystery object



## DouglasFresh1980 (Jul 28, 2016)

Found this spike, covered in oysters.  I'm new to this treasure hunting thing and I tried to knock the oysters off with a screwdriver and hammer. Well I broke it, twice.  Mad at myself a little.  On the positive side laying next to it in the shallow water was another iron piece of something.  Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to clean it off without breaking it?  Does it look like another spike or something else, it seems bigger.  Any help is much appreciated.


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## CanadianBottles (Jul 28, 2016)

That's not a railroad spike, it looks to me like it might be the end of a cable, but I'm not sure.  That sort of thing is everywhere out in the wild, most of it won't clean up to be anything interesting but if you want to try cleaning that sort of thing up look up how to do electrolysis online.  I've never done it myself but I see people on the metal detecting forum getting really good results with electrolysis and making iron and brass objects look almost brand new.  One piece of advice I'll give is to not use a stainless steel spoon like you often see people people online using because I remember reading that the chemicals released into the water when using stainless steel as an electrode are highly carcinogenic.  I'm not sure what the best metal to use as an electrode is, I haven't read up on it enough since I never did get around to making an electrolysis setup.


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## DouglasFresh1980 (Jul 29, 2016)

Probably right it being a cable.  Makes me feel a little better now that I broke it and I learned a lesson.  I'm going to look into the electrolysis thing and maybe expierment with the other piece so in the future if I find something I'll have a better chance of not breaking it.  Thanks a lot for your input.


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## CanadianBottles (Jul 30, 2016)

That's be a good thing to experiment on, it looks to me like a bolt with a nut partway up it so you aren't risking anything of importance.  I think the main thing to not do electrolysis on is old coins, from what I've seen it just wrecks the coin.  But old iron is perfectly safe to do it on.  You could experiment on the cable as well.  Even if it was a railroad spike those certainly aren't hard to come by.  I was quite excited when I found my first railroad spike with my metal detector but now I just leave them when I come across one, there are so many out there.


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## DouglasFresh1980 (Jul 31, 2016)

Lol ya I was pretty excited at the time.  In hindsight it's not that cool.  Oh well I had a great day on the water.   Thanks again.


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