For the home plating specialist

Wilf · Post by **Wilf** » Sat Jan 01, 2011 11:48 pm

Arizona is above the equator...

Wilf

e3steve · Post by **e3steve** » Sun Jan 02, 2011 8:41 am

Not if you stand on your head!

Snakeoil · Post by **Snakeoil** » Fri Jan 07, 2011 4:51 pm

Well, all I can say is thank you Hollywood for the Bourne Ultimatum. That's what kept my attention off the 76 spokes I polished one at a time the other night.

Here's some pics of the latest parts. I'm not acid cleaning any of the high stress or strength parts like springs, pins, etc. Instead I'm either bead blasting or wire brushing and thoroughly degreasing. Everything I've read says that the H2 embrittlement risk is thought to be more related to the acid prep process, rather than the actual plating process. But just to be safe, I still bake all the high strength steel parts after plating.

I did find that deep rust pits don't like to plate. So for those areas, I heavily bead blast until the pits are more like shallow bowls. Can't screw up the surface anymore than the rust did so no harm done. And the plating has no problem throwing into those bowl areas.

The spokes, as you can see in the attached came out great. If I saw them at a swap meet, I would think they were NOS. Lots of time put into them, since they were all cleaned individually by hand with a steel wire brush. But the effort was worth it. You cannot get new spokes for certain model bikes, not even from Buchanans, so having this process available is a great added tool to any resto job.

I'm starting to walk around the bike as I await the return of my rims from the powder coater, and look for parts that need plating. I'm down to nuts and bolts. I am thinking about pulling the shocks off again and replating the lower bodies where the PO did his version of a "sprucing up". Might just blast them, plate them and polish them. We'll see.

regards,
Rob

Wilf · Post by **Wilf** » Sat Jan 08, 2011 12:12 am

Rob,

You have done some beautiful work there--much better than I have ever achieved! Congratulations and thanks for posting your wicked progress--I'm re-inspired!

Wilf

Snakeoil · Post by **Snakeoil** » Sat Jan 08, 2011 12:03 pm

Thanks Wilf. I'm still using the original bath, which is really my second bath since I prematurely threw out the first one after a couple of plating sessions because it stopped bubbling.

This bath is still as sticky as ever so I assume I still have lots of brightener left. I really have not seen any change in plating quality.

I think there were several major improvements to my set up that helped achieve some pretty uniform results.

1. Circular cathode set up so I am theoretically getting electron flow (plating throw) for 360 degrees around the parts. Photo attached.
2. Moving up to a 12 vdc 1 amp transformer.
3. Measuring both dc volts and amps and controlling both by amp limit and volt limit, depending on which I hit first.
4. Sticking with short bath times of 5 minutes, 10 on some larger parts, to get a nice smooth finish.

Something else I started doing was dropping scrap zinc pieces, from my first set up, into my jug of new bath to let it dissolve and form zinc ions. This will make that jug ready to go should I decide to retire this bath. A 2" x 3" piece of zinc strip was completely dissolved in 24 hours. This would explain why my first set of cathodes turned into lace curtains after a few plating sessions. This new circular cathode is lasting quite long, which I'm happy about.

I've gone thru two brass brushes which were about 1 inch wide by 4 inches long and beat up 3 of those tooth brush size brushes. Need to make another trip to Harbor Freight today for more brushes. A tip on those, for those who have HF close by. Get the individual brushes and not the bubble pack with the assortment of 6 (brass, steel and plastic). The assortment look the same, but are actually of lower quality. Don't last anywhere near as long.

I know I've said this before, but to me, one of the best features of this process is the abililty to touch up missing chrome. That alone makes this process worthwhile. But the ability to revive old zinc plated parts is truly the real value here. If I had read Wilf's post a week or so earlier, I would have saved a lot of money on new engine casing screws. Mine were all in great shape, just missing the plating.

regards,
Rob

bbap · Post by **bbap** » Sat Jan 08, 2011 4:40 pm

I'm sold on this process with that great outcome. Any further ideas on where individual zinc strips can be had?

Also, would it be possible to zinc over chrome? My bars are just peeling chrome and I was just going to do my best by removing as much as possible with the wire wheel, sand liberally, prime and paint until I could get a nice set of repro's.

After reading this, think it reasonable to zinc over chrome and what about surface prep?

Steve

Snakeoil · Post by **Snakeoil** » Sat Jan 08, 2011 7:25 pm

bbap,

Go back to the beginning of the thread and read the entire thread. There is a lot of good info in there.

You cannot plate over chrome. Well you can, but it will simply flake off when you brush it. I personally think the chrome on handlebars is too well done to try and fake it with polished zinc like I did on my brake pedal, front brake arms, etc. The chrome on those is rough enough that replacing any missing chrome with polished zinc looks pretty good. In some cases the zinc looks better than the original chrome.

I cannot stress enough the need to degrease your parts before you blast or plate. I started getting lazy and did not do the degreasing job I should have. Result was flaking zinc, which meant starting all over again.

regards,
Rob