The zinc content of the roofing strips is 98.87% with the remaining stuff listed as "impurities" which is probably anything from machine oils to the tip of somebody's finger. I would say that short of lab quality metal, you won't get much better than those roof strips.
regards,
Rob
For the home plating specialistShow-off!!! That's a deal. Good find. Another observation on the plating process. Yesterday my bath died. I plated one end of the swingarm pivot bolt the night before. When I put some small parts in the bath yesterday, it hardly bubbled. Did not think much of it until I took the parts out of the bath. They were hardly plated. I tested all my connections and my charger and everything was fine. I started another bath in a small tank for to plate the ID on a part and it was bubbling furiously. So, I dumped the bath in the big tank and put in fresh bath. It was like night and day. New bath went opaque with bubbles in short order and the plating quality returned. My guess is the bath loses either its acidity or electrical conductivity with use. Could lose both. I don't have any Ph paper to test the acidity level. But the stuff is so cheap to make, it's not worth the hassle. Just dump it and make or add more. My cathodes are starting to disappear. One is almost cut in half. One of the small cathodes I made for doing the ID of bushings has a hole eaten in the side. I would say that if you plan on doing a lot of parts, you will need the 50 ft roll you got, Zoom. I'm going to hang on to my package of strips because I have other bikes to do yet. One last point. Wilf, you had asked about the voltage going to the part. I checked the voltage yesterday when I was trying to figure out what happened to that bath. I measured less than 1 volt across the cathode and anode. I think the 3VDC charger was making about 0.5VDC and the 9VDC charger hooked up and adjusted to less than 200 ma was making about 0.8 VDC. So, my guess is the minimum voltage you read about was in order to provide sufficient current to the process. I have a 12VDC 800ma charger that I might try if I have to do a big part. No plans for that in the near future, though. regards, Rob regards, Rob O.K., you guys have convinced me to give it a try! The one bummer about being in Ca, no one sells moss strips for roofs! I found a seller on Ebay that had the 50ft roll. $28 including shipping. Now to start getting the rest of the ingredients in order. I'm hoping this will be something I can do while working on other things in my shop. Thanks for the inspiration guys!
Davo davomoto
64 CB77 63-7 CB77 Cafe' 67 CL77 64 CL72 66 CL77 big bore flat tracker Many others! Davo,
I acutally have a test kit for my hot tub. I forgot all about it. But it is probably not worth buying one. Test kit is way more than the cost to make up a new bath. At the risk of beating this to death (Wilf, you have created a plating monster here) I replated two things today that just tickled me to death. The first was that little trap door and the tiny screw and washer for the cover that goes over the front fork lock on my CL77. My trap door was in perfect shape, only rusty, as was the screw and washer. I sand blasted the trap door front and just wire brushed the back. Back was still plated. The door is riveted in place on the plastic sleeve that makes up the cover. Did not want to ruin the original rivet. So, I just plated it in place. Came out great, as did that tiny JIS screw and washer. But the best was yet to come. The two metal shielded spark plug lead ends looked old and crappy. Not rusty, but gray, plating missing... ugly. So, I dipped a rag in acid and cleaned them up as best I could. I then wire brushed the daylights out of them with a soft (Harbor Freight, made in China by prisoners) steel wire brush). Then into the plating bath. 20 minutes each, carded and back in for a second coat of 20 more minutes. Did them individually. Attached are the before and after pictures of my plug ends. Note that the OEM markings are as crisp as they day they were made. I've also attached a pic of my tank and cathodes. They are pretty much done. Need to make a new set. As I walk around the bike I see all kinds of plated parts that need sprucing up. I even replated the phillips head oval head screws that hold the points cover in place. They were pretty rusty. I hammered the slots back into shape, sanded the oval head in the lathe and in the bath they went. What a difference. No longer do I have to worry about finding oddball fasteners. I'll just fix mine. This will be a big savings when I get into my '66 Bonnie that has many Whitworth fasteners. Davo, you won't be disappointed. You'll be sending Wilf a big fat kiss in the mail... that's the postal kind of mail Jensen so you won't get the wrong idea. regards, The mad plater
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