Plating Kits

[John L]

I have been wondering if the DIY kits are actually worth considering for plating many of the little parts on the car, that were plated originally and now are looking usually rather tired.

There seem to have been 2 types of plating used on these cars, its either zinc like on the bolts and washers and cadmium on many other parts, like the bonnet catch and the throttle linkages.

If anybody has used these kits I would be very interested to hear their experiences, and are some kits much better than others, and how to choose.

There seem to be 2 types of kits either a 5ltr or a 10ltr sizes, I presume this is just really to accommodate the part size to be plated?

If you have any photos of parts done in this way that would be a great help.

Thanks John

[RogerH]

Hi John,

I understand you are not in the UK. Within the UK there are plenty of plating shops up and down the country - all very cheap and good quality.

 

Not sure what is available on the continent.

 

The kits sort of work but after paying out for the kit and experimenting I would have thought it would be cheaper and better value to have the items plated professionally.

 

Some chemicals are quite poisonous. if they are not poisonous they probably don;t work.

 

Roger

[foster461]

I researched this a while back and it looked like the home plating kits do a good job for these small parts. The chemicals were not that expensive but the power supply needed to make the task simple for various sized parts essentially doubled the cost of the equipment and for the handful of bits I needed plating was not economical. If you are really determined you can get by with a car battery and a battery charger and various devices to step down the voltage but then it becomes yet another project.

 

Stan

[AlanT]

Like painting, the key to successful plating is in the preparation of the surface. This usually means polishing.

When I have stuff professionally chrome-plated between half and two-thirds of the cost is down to polishing.

 

Then there is the business of getting the surface chemically clean, free from any oils etc.

 

Now the actual process is quite messy and split chemical will stain/rot stuff.

 

The easiest finish is Nickel and traditionally this comes up Matte rathet than shiny.

 

As regards Chrome ther are two types, from memory Hexa-valent and tri-valent.

The older process gives better results but is more or less defunct through safety legislation.

 

Here are a pair of handles done locally here, using the old process, by a specialist who only does old vehicle parts.

The cost of these was suprisingly low. PM me if you want to know more.

[Peter Cobbold]

Electroless nickel might be suitable, but I've never used it. And kit prices vary greatly: Caswell is £200+ so check this out first:

http://gaterosplating.co.uk/Nickel-Brush-Plating-Kit.php

 

I would avoid cadmium:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadmium_poisoning

[stuart]

I used to have a small Nickel plating setup running all the time in my other workshop when I was doing nut and bolt re builds. Started with one of the kits that were commercially available then and got some very good results with it. It was a bit Heath Robinson but once you understood the best way to go about cleaning/prepping/polishing and the length of time to plate different sizes/shapes I found it extremely useful indeed especially as the nearest platers for Nickel/Zinc that are any good are an hours drive away at least.

Stuart.

[BlueTR3A-5EKT]

Are there effluent controls applicable to this, or is a it considered as too small worry?

Peter W

[peejay4A]

I plated quite a few small parts for my rebuild. I also tested some for durability by leaving them outside for some months. The results were good. I still have the chemicals and I'm unsure as to how to dispose of them.

[MikeF]

Electroless nickel might be suitable, but I've never used it. And kit prices vary greatly: Caswell is £200+ so check this out first:

http://gaterosplating.co.uk/Nickel-Brush-Plating-Kit.php

 

I would avoid cadmium:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadmium_poisoning

[Chilliman]

 

 

I plated quite a few small parts for my rebuild. I also tested some for durability by leaving them outside for some months. The results were good. I still have the chemicals and I'm unsure as to how to dispose of them.

 

Likewise, I've done a fair bit with a little home set-up kit using a battery charger for juice and basic zinc plating for corrosion resistance and appearance - had very good results, in fact one of the items I did was an old gear stick that because I put some effort into polishing the original item before plating looked almost as good as a chrome plated version when it was done,................ (and best wishes for your birthday Pete )

[TRnorm]

I found this to be very informative. Don't know if it's still available though.

Norman

 

IMG_20150426_0002.pdf

[Peter Cobbold]

Stumbled across this bookmark. It gives the list of ingredients and concentrations for electroless nickel at room temperature:

http://www.google.com/patents/US3574664?printsec=abstract#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

Some nasties in there - wear eye protection at the very least.

Thats if you can find where to buy them neat.....

 

Peter

[MikeF]

Things have moved on since that Patent as you can find out by Googling electroless nickel plating formulation. The results are theoreticals though,. What the patent - and the other generic formulations you might find - don't tell you are the additives needed to give a uniform deposit with good grain structure, that is not going to flake off, the brighteners to make it look good and so on. Nor anything else you might appreciate such as the order to mix the chemicals in, the min purity of the chemicals. the best mixing techniques and temperatures and so on. In other words a partial recipe and no method or procedure on bath make up. Nor anything on bath maintenance when plating like control of pH to what limits, if filtration or agitation needed and so on, You would need to be an excellent and experienced chemist/cook to get a result or prepared to do a lot of trial runs if not. Also as Peter says there are some quite noxious chemicals to play with when mixing these things up.

Going this route might be a sort of hobbyist experiment, and its always a bit of fun to go through this in a forum back and forth but by now is a long way from your car...

[Personally I would no more consider doing this for real than I would of making my own paint from scratch. ]

 

Mike

Edited May 6, 2015 by MikeF