VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND EARLIER 1912-1928 Electroplating

I'm wondering if anyone else has tried electroplating. I bought a copy chrome kit and flash copper kit from Caswell. Right now I'm plating the door handles on my '26. They were pretty pitted and I needed to do a lot of sanding to get a smooth surface. The pot metal polished up really nice. I put on a thin layer of flash copper and and a 1 mil layer of copy chrome. I think copy chrome is actually cobalt. I'm really pleased with the results. One of the handles must be aluminum since the plating didn't stick. I'll test it with acid tomorrow and if it's aluminum I'll have to zincate it first. It's always fun to try something new. I didn't want to go with real chrome since I understand the chrome solution and its vapors are really taxic.

Can you post some pics of the process and your results?

Here are a couple of pictures. The first one is one of the door handles. Chevy door handles are made out of pot metal and mine were heavily pitted. What you're seeing in the picture is the reflection of the camera on the surface of the handle. To get a mirror finish your piece has to have a mirror finish to start with. Any imperfections and sanding scratches will show on the finished surface. Pot metal polishes up beautifully but of course won't stay shiny for long. The surface also has to be absolutely clean and free of oil or grease and that includes no finger prints. The second picture is of the copy chrome tank and the degreaser tank. There are metal anodes hanging on the sides inside the tank. The copper pipe is the cathode that the pieces being plated hang from on copper wires. The solution is a mixture of cobalt suphate, cobalt chloride, and boric acid. Almost all of the work involved in electroplating is in the surface preparation. The amount of current is critical to a good finish. I'm just using a 1 amp 5 volt power supply, the type that plugs into a wall outlet and has a cord coming out of it. It cost me $2.99 and I just cut off the end and atached aligator clips. The light bulb controls the current. I went through my stash of automotive bulbs, soldered wires and alligator clips to the terminals, and measured the amperage draw of each. After estimating the surface area of an item to be plated, I pick a bulb with the approximate needed amperage. You can also buy a proper lab power supply but these start at $150. For copy chrome you need one amp for 32 square inches of surface area to be plated. The piece has to be in the tank for one hour which should give .001" of plating.

BRAVO !!

Arend...That is really interesting.Thanx
You are a brave person to take that on..I really enjoyed reading about your adventure into this realm. I never thought the average person could do that at home.
WOW that is too cool. You should offer your service in the VCCA monthly publication, if you would be interested in offering this service to others?
There is a great need for folks like you out there...Good Luck...ED 1938

Thanks. I'm not really interested in going into business. There are a lot of plating shops around that do this kind of work. You can also check out www.caswellplating.com/. I'm retired and only work on my old cars for fun. My goal was to learn to do every aspect of the restoration process. I've done everything else on this '26 Chevy and plating was the only thing I hadn't tried yet. With these kits I can only do small items but it's amazing how many small items there are on an old car that should be plated. So far I've got both the inside and the outside door handles and the motometer done. I started working on the hub caps. It's a very labor intensive process and that would be why chrome shops charge as much as they do.

Arend,

Do you still have pictures of what you done? since I am wanting to to some of my parts and a moto meter I just recently picked up on ebay.

Here is my meter.

On small items it is fairly easy to do and you only need a few items (low voltage power supply, solution containers and a buffer).

I tried it years ago and still have some of the solutions. I secured all my materials from a local jewelry making supply house. I found it was very easy to plate small items. It is important to prepare your items carefully and making sure that you transferred enough of the donor metal to the piece that you are plating.

The only issue you may have is on disposal of the plating solutions. They are considered as a hazardous chemical, but then so is the water in Flint Michigan.

I also found powder coating small pieces easy to accomplish with a small bead cabinet, an old electric oven and a powder coating gun from Harbor Freight.

Im looking to see example pictures especially before i do it since i have no idea on how to protect the thermometer itself.

I'm actually disappointed with the final results. I found that the copy chrome tarnished after a short while even when polished with the recommended wax. The tarnish does come off readily with the wax. I found the best solution was to spray them with lacquer or clear coat. This keeps them shiny much better.

For small objects like your motometer I would try brush plating. Caswell sells these kits also and they are not very expensive.

Do you have any pictures. I mean how did you do the motometer without ruining the thermometer?

You have to take the motometer apart, plate and polish the metal parts and then reassemble.

Yes but my thermometer does not come out it is epoxyed in some how. It is an non-removable one.