For the home plating specialist

Wilf · Post by **Wilf** » Sun Apr 15, 2012 8:41 am

Nicely done, brewsky--simple, yet effective!

I expect the bubbling will die down as more zinc from the anode has time to dissolve into the solution.

Wilf

Snakeoil · Post by **Snakeoil** » Tue Apr 17, 2012 2:50 pm

The KISS principle at work.

Guys over on the Triumphrat forum were having issues with dark gray results. I finally concluded that they were using way too much power. I had a batch where one of the bigger pieces lost contact and the volts went up. I just happened to look at the parts while I was doing something else and noticed high readings on the meter and lots of bubbles. Pulled out the part and it was dark gray.

I guess folks figure more is better so they go heavy on the power supply side. I took exactly the opposite approach, using what I had lying around the house. I'm cheap, ya'know. Turns out that being cheap is a good governing factor in some things like plating, for example. Although I did pop for $50 for a package of zinc roofing strips that will probably last me a lifetime. Guess I can move to non-fungus areas and not worry about finding zinc.

regards,
Rob

brewsky · Post by **brewsky** » Wed Apr 18, 2012 4:30 am

Thanks for the encouragement, guys.

Think I will try a single battery on the next attempt if the bubbling doesn't decrease after sitting and see what happens.

I was suprised how much moving the piece toward or away from the anode affects the current.

With the small container, I wasn't able to move it far enough away to get much below 300 ma.

I used the 2 batteries for at least 4 hours doing small batches, and they still were at 1.4V each afterwards.

Wire brushed and degreased the parts and then "pickled" them in The Works toilet cleaner first. (Not sure why,...just seemed like a good thing to do?)

More later.....

Snakeoil · Post by **Snakeoil** » Wed Apr 18, 2012 9:47 am

Brewski,

The drawback to using batteries is their capacity is obviously limited. You can still use two, but hook them in parallel to maintain 1.5 V instead of series, which gives you 3.0 V. This will give you more capacity for larger pieces.

regards,
Rob

305nutt · Post by **305nutt** » Wed May 02, 2012 9:51 pm

Has anyone using this set up had their pieces rust a few weeks after plating? I bought the caswell kit and everything looked beautiful for a couple of months then everything started to form a rust film.

Snakeoil · Post by **Snakeoil** » Wed May 09, 2012 8:52 pm

I have parts that were plated 2 years ago when I discovered this thread. Bike has been thru 3 Motogiros, one, last fall that ran almost all in the rain. No rust on my parts.

I'm going to guess that you may have had the polarity reversed and all you did was clean your parts really well, but did not plate them.

regards,
Rob

brewsky · Post by **brewsky** » Thu May 10, 2012 4:58 am

Wow.....this is addictive!!

The bubbles did disappear after the zinc had some time in the bath.

I'm wondering if the zinc stays in the bath long enough before you start plating, will the shadow effect be minimized, or even eliminated?

I'm even trying to coat some pitted, rusty chrome plated parts to see if the zinc will stop any further rusting.

The zinc coats the chrome, but rubs off pretty easily with a brass brush without any apparant damage to the remaining chrome.