how do they get the gold on china

Factual Questions
1

I am trying to figure out how they install the gold ring around china cups and plates, stuff like that

2

It’s probably painted on, since it’s not very economical to use real gold leaf (which is real gold pounded paper-thin [thinner, actually] and applied by hand using an adhesive). I don’t know if the gold paint contains any real gold, perhaps some suspended particles.

http://users.lanminds.com/~drewid/Gold_leaf.html

Don’t ask me how they get those little plastic prescription bottles into the typewriter.

3

I do not think that the gold iasa painted on the china, gold would not adhear on its own, i do elecrto plating and i need to figure out how to plate non conductive surfaces like china or plastic

4

I make pottery and ceramics, and the gold is indeed painted on. A vial sized bottle of the stuff costs about $15. To add gold to a piece it must be fired (type of clay determines how high to turn your kiln), then underglazed as you wish, fired again, overglazed to give the piece the shiny coating, then you paint on the gold, and then you fire again (at a lower temperature). If you need more specific instructions I can give them to you. Hope this helps.

5

thank you for the info i guess iu need to figure out electroforming
instead. i am trying to figure out how to gold plate non cunductive surfaces

6

My first response is “Why, fer godsake? What’s wrong with paint?” But I’ll bite…

You can’t electroplate a non-conducting surface. You can, however, make a non-conducting surface conducting. Usually this means creating some bound ions by stripping the surface with acid or base, and maybe reacting a metal salt onto it. I don’t know; does anyone know how Feynman did it?

7

IIRC, the process is clean object, coat with a conductive lacquer, plate with a some other metal (copper, nickel or some alloy), then gold plate.

I think non conductive materials can be plated by a chemical process (electroless?).

What do you want to plate? Home plating kits are available, I think (bronzing baby shoes etc).

Sorry this is vague, but its something over ten years since I had anything to do with electroplating (and that wasn’t on the factory floor). But I did get to hear about how a toilet was gold plated …