playing with plating...

**edblysard** · 7th June 2009, 02:14 PM

In between dye jobs I have been playing with electro-plating copper to hardware...the idea is to custom plate some select kits for small custom lots and customers..
Copper is simply the starting point, the hope is to go to chrome, (depending on the required chemicals), also real gold, nickel, and sterling silver.

Below is a prototype experiment, plated the shells as well as the hardware, and fit was not a concern, it was simply to see if it worked as I hoped it would.

Comments and ideas always welcome...pro and con.

No real effort was put into a polish, simply Mothers Mag polish, as this will be disassembled by the time you read this thread...I have a vibrating polisher and the proper medium to do a good sized lot of parts, so I didn't get too carried away on the prototype.

**artme** · 7th June 2009, 03:07 PM

That has worked out very well.

Do you intend to test the durability of the plating Ed? If so, how?

**mkypenturner** · 7th June 2009, 03:18 PM

super

troy

**funkychicken** · 7th June 2009, 07:06 PM

Do tell us how!

**PenTurner** · 7th June 2009, 07:27 PM

Another good one, there will be refining along the way, can the same set up be used for other metals? I imagine different metals will need different chemicals for electrolysis to occur. Amos

**edblysard** · 7th June 2009, 08:53 PM

I am going to plate a nib, clip and finial and build a bullet pen, then carry it around for a while and see how it wears...I know the copper plating will tarnish quickly, but it ends up the same color as a old penny.

Originally Posted by artme

That has worked out very well.

Do you intend to test the durability of the plating Ed? If so, how?

**edblysard** · 7th June 2009, 08:56 PM

So far, the only one that seems to require a rather exotic set up and chemicals is chrome...oddly, there is more useful information on the internet about building bombs than copper and gold plating.

Originally Posted by Woodenink

Another good one, there will be refining along the way, can the same set up be used for other metals? I imagine different metals will need different chemicals for electrolysis to occur. Amos

**bdar** · 7th June 2009, 10:56 PM

Ed, I like what you have done, you can plate the whole bullet, nib, cb, clip and finial. Nice to accent the brass and nickel cartridges with copper nibs, cb's and clips. It opens up a lot of different options. Will wait to see you come up with more.

Cheers
Darren

**munruben** · 7th June 2009, 11:08 PM

Originally Posted by edblysard

.I know the copper plating will tarnish quickly, but it ends up the same color as a old penny.

I am sure i read somewhere that there is a coating that you can apply to polished copper to make it retain its lustre. Might be worth checking out.
The pen looks great by the way.

**Resination** · 8th June 2009, 02:43 AM

Plating is a fairly easy process, but it can get expensive real quick. Especially getting into gold and sterling. Also need to be careful with the cyanide.
There are coatings to apply that keep it from tarnishing.

**edblysard** · 8th June 2009, 06:30 AM

Found out something rather odd, or maybe not...
Was washing a few of the nibs from the "cheap" 7mm kits in lacquer thinner prior to plating them...the "gold" plating on them pitted, and on a few, washed away completly...so I slapped the old volt ohm meter to one and surprise...it ain't plated at all, its painted with a plastic gold paint over a brass nib....it does have a slight metal content, it registers on the meter, but nothing like the nibs from the better kits...so a few seconds with an Xacto knife confirmed that the plating was indeed metalic gold paint.
I imagine it is a powder coating of some type.

So...to plate the cheap kits might require a dip in some type of stripping compound to take them to the brass....did discover that the better kits with real gold do take the copper plaing quite well...as with any finish, the better the surface is preped, the better the end result will be...also discovered the better kits are brass hardware plated with copper, then gold, chrome or nickel...the copper plating acts as a "primer" base for the gold or nickel and such to adhere to...and the opposite works just as well, the light gold plate offers a perfect surface to copper plate.
Chrome does not accept the copper plating, neither does nickel, the acid reaction required for the plating dosen't affect the chrome or nickel.

**artme** · 8th June 2009, 08:42 AM

Welcome to Alchemy 101!!

**funkychicken** · 8th June 2009, 07:44 PM

Originally Posted by edblysard

So...to plate the cheap kits might require a dip in some type of stripping compound to take them to the brass....did discover that the better kits with real gold do take the copper plaing quite well...as with any finish, the better the surface is preped, the better the end result will be...also discovered the better kits are brass hardware plated with copper, then gold, chrome or nickel...the copper plating acts as a "primer" base for the gold or nickel and such to adhere to...and the opposite works just as well, the light gold plate offers a perfect surface to copper plate.
Chrome does not accept the copper plating, neither does nickel, the acid reaction required for the plating dosen't affect the chrome or nickel.

Why are you plating kits? Think of the custom made pens you could do! Tell us how you did the plating pleeeeeease

**edblysard** · 8th June 2009, 09:02 PM

Just a copper sulfate and sulfuric acid solution...and a small transformer.
Out put on the transformer is 3 volts at 100 milliamps.
Anode (+) is a piece of copper plate, the part to plate is the cathode (-)
Agitate and it takes about 5 minutes to build up a good thick layer.

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