Any one know how to do Electroplating

[True_Metal]

Besides MDing i am a fanatical troutbum. I like to flyfish but i also like to use conventional gear esp what are known as inline spinners for Steelhead and Salmon in northern NY. These are the mepps, and rooster tails lures many of you may have seen in the fishing sections of some stores. I refuse to buy mepps and the like because of the ridiculous cost of them and the cheapness quality wise so i opt to buy the components and build them myself. The spinner blades i purchase are a heavier stamp of brass sheetmetal and superior to store bought lures. You can buy them electro plated in silver or 24 carat gold, but to buy them in bulk as i like to do the $$$ can add up quickly. Is there a way to to electroplate with silver and gold at home? I can purchase the blades in plain brass which is cheap in volumes and save myself a ton of $$$ if i could electroplate them myself.
With all the precious metal merchants here i'm sure someone knows about this process. Thanks in advance

 

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[southern gent]

There are at home electroplating kits. The price, idunno? Try some of the hot rod or custom car magazines. I used to see them quite frequently. Good luck & HH! Chris

 

[True_Metal]

Really? What would car buffs electroplate? Thanks Southerngent! I had no idea that you could get them in kits? I figured it would be a hardware store venture much like the home electrolysis coin cleaning contraption that i made. I will see what i can find. Thanks again.

 

[lab rat]

Search the web-- there are 'how to' sites and pages where you can buy supplies & equipment.? I've seen books and equipment on Ebay as well.

Basically all you need is a steady DC current, a soluble salt of the metal you want to plate with (ie silver nitrate for silver, copper sulfate for copper, etc.) and a solid piece of the plating metal. You suspend the item to be plated in the salt solution, and hook up (+). The (-) goers to the source metal. (Polarity depends on how the engineer designed the power supply, so these might be reversed.) You will probably need to experiment with duration, current strength, solution strength, etc. to get it right, and that can be as much art as science. Try plating junk a few times before going to production.

 

[True_Metal]

Lab Rat. Thanks for the reply. What is a soluable salt of the metal i want to plate? I consulted a buddy of mine who fishes that lives out of state and he was saying as he remembers that a car battery charger works for the electric supply but you need some mixture of chemicals and one of the key chemicals is some form of cyanide which as he put it is almost impossible to get for obvious reasons.

 

[BFranklin]

True

The easiest form of electro plating is anodizing aluminum, allthough gold and silver colors are expensive and hard to find.
try caswell plating. the kits are rather expensive. I use sulfuric acid (Battery acid from auto zone) and water with a 24volt regulated supply. I also use my setup to clean old coins and jewelry.
http://www.caswellplating.com/

 

[lab rat]

A soluble salt is any salt that will dissolve in water. Most people think of 'salt' as table salt, which is soluble, but there are lots of different salts, and not all salts are soluble. (Common table salt is sodium chloride.) If you want to plate with copper, you need a solution of a copper salt. (Copper chloride is only weakly soluble and so not an effective plating agent, so I suggested copper sulfate, which is very soluble.) If you want to plate with silver, you need a soluble silver salt. If you want to plate with gold, the most commonly used soluble gold salt used to be gold cyanide, and yes-- this is hard to get and you should have a strong chemistry background before working with it! You have to keep the solution basic with a stable base (ie potassium hydroxide-- also very dangerous!) or the fumes can kill everything around. Using a different base can also create a highly unstable explosive compound that has levelled laboratories in the past.

Plating is a simple process, but there is a lot to learn about it if you want to do it well without danger to yourself or others. I would recommend checking out books on the subject from your local library-- this would provide you with a better understanding than I can give here. Check out books on general chemistry to learn more about salts-- how they are defined, how they behave when dissolved, etc. Be safe!

 

[True_Metal]

Thanks for the reply BF. I cant seem to get that link to work. I keep getting error messages.

Whoa, LabRat. That sounds like some heavy stuff! I'm dont think i'm gonna mess around with mixtures like that. Sounds way too unstable for a person like me to play around with, for i know very little about chemistry. Thanks anyway, i appreciate the info 8)

 

[coinshooter]

You could always stamp them out in quantity and then take them to a plating shop. Make up a ton and you could sell them to your local bait shops and make your $ back and maybe pick up some extra change in the process. 8)

 

[True_Metal]

Thanks for the suggestion Coin Shooter but i think i'm going to let this one go. Too much effort, expense and danger for something like fishing lures. Maybe i will start painting the blades and see how it goes saving the silver and gold ones as back ups if the others dont produce.

 

[TMM]

This company sells small kits that get the power from a dry cell battery. Comes with a small brush with one wire attached that connects to one battery terminal, and you connect the other supplied lead to the part to be plated, dip the brush into the plating solution and brush it onto the metal part you're plating. You can get gold kits, nickel, etc. Been used for years by gunsmiths to plate small parts such as triggers being replated gold after it's worn off with use.


Texas Platers Supply, 2453 W. Five Mile
Parkway, SGN., Dallas, Texas 75233. Phone (214) 330-7168

 

[True_Metal]

Hey that sounds cool and it just might do the trick. I will give them a call! Thanks for the tip TMM