Cheap gold plating?

[wsal]

Hey guys,
Does anyone have any recommendations for cheap one-off gold plating in Melbourne? I want to get plated a guitar tailpiece that I've made out of brass - looks basically like this: http://www.allparts.com/assets/images/products/TP-0630-010-web.jpg and it's about the size of your hand. It's 5 pieces - the flat 'hook', the 'arms', the 'block' where the strings are anchored, and 2 dome nuts. I've got one quote so far, from a few emails sent (electroplaters don't seem too flash at email!) for $100, which I find hard to swallow. Does anyone have any better ideas?
Cheers
Will

[KBs PensNmore]

I don't think that is too bad a price, considering the price of Gold at the moment is about $1500 on ounce. Emailing anyone is bad news, RINGING for quotes is always better, if you can weigh the items, that would be better as they usually quote on weight.
I used to get zinc plating done and that was about $1200 per month:rolleyes: mind you that was about 1100KG worth
Kryn

[Michael G]

I agree with Kryn, in that $100 does not sound too bad - I ran a metal treatment tank line once and there are a lot of steps and quite a bit of overhead in there that the end user does not see.
Another alternative if you are just chasing the gold colour is titanium nitride - the gold coating that you see on some cutting tools. I'm told (don't know whether it is true or not) that items like tapware have that as a coating rather than gold plate. I guess better wear resistance as well as cheaper(?) and faster.

Michael

[Ben Dono]

The price does not sound all that bad. I'm sure their is a lot more in it than just dunking it in some tanks with cables and solution.

From what I have read about the plating process, you can diy it but it's fraught with risk. Sometimes you can nail it, often you don't.
Castwell in OZ sells plating kits and youtube would have a lot of articles on it.

Why not just polish the brass?

I was following a car restoration on TV not that long ago....they were talking about the cost of all the chrome plating running into the 10k mark....I nearly fell off my seat! I'm guessing a lot of that cost included repair/salvage of parts before they were plated.

Maybe another perspective on it, if someone asked you to make 5 guitar tail pieces expecting them to be in the cost ball park of what you could buy off the shelf, you would probably politely turn the job down.
I can imagine they would take a lot of skill and time. The cost of the materials would be shadowed by the time and skill you put into them.

Do they teach jewellery making at tafe? Maybe they would have a plating class where you could 'donate' the test pieces!

[cba_melbourne]

To me, $100 to gold plate such quite large items actually sounds suspiciously cheap. You may end up with an extremely thin, chemically deposited coat.

Have you considered how ugly items with too thin a gold coating wear? A perfect example are the snap locks on too cheap briefcases. After a few months of use, the metal underneath small scratches and scuffs turns black. And the parts vey soon look miserable and cheaper as untreated brass would. Same happens with too cheap gold pens. That sort of gold coating would really make your guitar look like it was a mass product from China.
If you really would like it to look like gold, and last for some time, then I would suggest you take the parts to a jeweller and ask him for a quote. But by jeweller I mean a fellow artisan that makes quality jewellry himself - I do not mean those retail shops that adverise diamond rings at 70 % discount and source their goods from Asia.

If all you are after is really a very thin and fragile coat of gold for the looks, then you could buy a simple chemical DIY gold plating liquid, same stuff that is used to plate contacts on printed circuit boards.

[Evanism]

Interesting thread.

Interesting because Ive been thinking a lot about hinges, locks and other decorative things for boxes and cabinets. It seems very very very hard to get nice fine grade components (are they called "furniture" perhaps?).

I used to do a LOT of chrome plating back in my "street machine days"... it was terribly expensive.

On the smaller electroplating home kits, I wouldn't discount them too fast. The process is identical to the bigger commercial mobs... the little transformers use the same electricity. I used to "save" money by going into the shop and doing the chrome plating myself. Its not hard, but its preparation, preparation, preparation... then finishing, finishing, finishing..... very labour intensive.... lots of braising, filling, smoothing, polishing.... rinse, inspect, repeat. It would be the same here.

A quick Google found a couple of nice little kits. One was really expensive.

[neksmerj]

Hi Will,

I've had a number of items gold plated by Sterling Plating including a large, intricate old fashioned iron key and a brass medallion. Prices were very reasonable.

They are located at 660 Waterdale Rd, Heidelberg West.

Their website is http://www.sterlingplating.com.au/

They are definitely worth a visit with your parts in hand.

Good luck

Ken

[Aussie Bruce]

Um just to let you know that Qantas etc where gold plated items are used in first class etc use ti-nite coated parts i.e. Sutton's in tomastown

its not expensive to get steel items etc coated

Bruce

[cba_melbourne]

Just as an alternative to relatively expensive plating.....

have you considered making the part from ..... a solid gold sheet? A 0.3mm thick sheet of 9 carat yellow gold 50x50mm in size would cost you around $200. Of course you would collect any cutout or cutoff material and sell it back. You can order such sheet in whatever thickness and cut to a rectangle of your size, and its available is various alloys/color tones like red gold or yellow gold etc, and you choose if you want it hard or soft (working gold makes it hard, annealing and quenching makes it soft). When you sell your guitar, it makes a hell of a difference if you can say trimmings are made from "solid 9 carat gold", rather than something like "5 micron thick gold plated brass".

[wsal]

Thanks for all the replies guys! Of course I don't want to cheapen the profession, and I recognise that it takes serious gear to get it done, but given that you can buy the same entire part for $6.78 from ebay for a 6 string guitar in gold plated finish (I'm building a 7 string guitar, hence the need to build my own), I feel like there's gotta be a cheaper way. Maybe the cheapy isn't real gold plate - if so that's fine, because it's likely then that the rest of the gold hardware on the guitar wouldn't be either - I just need it to match.

I'll check out the titanium nitride - thanks for the tip! Sounds like maybe I should bring the parts in to a someone to look at, as well as a few of the bits that it needs to match, and they'll be able to advise whether gold or TiN is the ticket...

Cba - gold sheet's not gunna do the trick. Needs to be able to hold ~90kgs of guitar string tension, and the whole part is made up of sheet, round rod, rectangle bar, and hex rod turned to acorn nuts...

[Ben Dono]

Yep...that's big price differences from China....imagine what you would have to charge if you were scratch building one! The $7 would not cover the fuel when you pick up the materials!

I now see why the $100 would have been a shock!

Make sure you take pics and let us know how you solved the problem!