For work, I cut designs from plate metal. Someone brought some 1/8" steel plate to me and wanted several star designs cut out. I cut an extra for myself and one for my girlfriend. I worked it over with a flapper wheel so that it’s bright and shiny. Being steel though, it won’t stay that way as is. So I thought about just covering it with a layer of clear coat, but then I had a better idea.
I’d like to electroplate these things with some corrosion-resistant metal. I’m really considering nickel, though silver might be cool and even gold if I can get it cheap enough. Hell, I have two of them so I can try two different metals. So where can I get small samples of these metals that would be useful as electrodes? I have no trouble finding nickel-plated stuff, but just a nickel rod isn’t so easy. Also, do I have to use an electrolyte containing that metal? I don’t imagine it would be easy to find nickel salts. Would a lantern battery suffice as a power source? Any suggestions would be awesome.
I once had something gold-plated at a local shop. It was very reasonable. and no messing with cyanide… I would see if there is a plating shop locally that can do this for you.
First thought was the Caswell plating, second is that some local jewelry shops have done silver plating for me in the past. Doubt they would do chrome, but silver, gold, copper, & nickel should be no problem.
A while back, I wanted to get some small parts hard-chrome plated. For $50 (their minimum charge) a local plating shop took care of all the polishing and buffing, plus the plating itself.
For a one-off project, it’s cheaper than the Caswell kits linked above, and you don’t have to worry about disposing of chemicals or goofing up your project because you missed a step or whatever.
That’s pretty interesting. I’d want one of the standard kits but they’re a bit high just for what I want to do. If I thought I could make money doing it, I’d jump on it.
I may have to look into that. I found a plating shop in the phone directory. If I could get them both plated for $50 or so, that would be a good deal. It would be disappointing that I didn’t get to do it myself though.
I know exactly what you’re talking about. The plating was the one piece of the project that I had to outsource.
However, when I first walked into the plating shop, I knew I made a good decision when I saw how everything just looked a bit corroded. Not like they were recovering form a disaster, but it was apparent that plating was a messy business. Smelly too. When I picked up the parts a few days later, I knew it was the right choice. I would have been perfectly happy if they plated the things with the light wire-brushed finish I’d left them at, but they took the time to actually polish them first, so the chrome was like a mirror.
Well I looked in the phone book and I only found one company that, judging by the name, does electroplating. The phone book groups electroplating with other coatings and surface treatments and most of them are paint companies. I tried to call that one company several times yesterday afternoon and they didn’t answer their phone. What kind of company doesn’t answer their phone on a Friday afternoon? I wonder if they’re closed down. I’ll keep trying, but if they don’t answer, I won’t really have a choice but to somehow do it myself. I can’t make a two-hour drive to Dallas or Shreveport on a weekday.
There is a service just for situations like that - it’s call The Mail.
Call them up, send them a photo via email, get a quote, mail them the parts, and wait for them to arrive…
It’s really a great system.
Most of good plating shops will be owner-operator with maybe a receptionist/cleaning lady/accountant/babysitter coming by once a week. It is kind of the nature of the job since if you do it right, the customer never has to come back. Add in that when they are doing the actual plating and not just all the prepwork, they probably won’t answer the phone as that task is not interruptible.
I’d try calling them every 2 days for a couple weeks, sometimes morning, sometimes afternoon evening and even Saturday and Sunday. Basically spread around your attempts to try and get them at a free moment.
I think you want a copper/nickel/chrome plate for your steel star. You could also get copper/nickel/gold. Gold plate is dirt cheap since it is so thin. The nickel will serve to shine it, but it yellows significantly. Chrome and gold will color it. The problem is that you have a small job. It would take all of a few hours to do it, but platers don’t make much money on it. On the otherhand, if you make nice with the plater, they would likely do it for free.
I don’t knows what this star looks like, but if it has lits of recesses, then chrome probably won’t work well. Chrome requires a high current density to plate out so deep corners are usually missed.
I don’t want a chrome finish. Aside from looking a bit plain, the plate isn’t perfectly flat. I had to buff some spots more than others to get all the pits out. Chrome is really reflective and would make it more obvious. I threw gold out because I figured it would be too expensive, but if not, it might be a cool choice. I’d love a silver finish, but browsing companies’ websites who do this, few of them have silver. I’ll try the local company a couple more times, and if they don’t answer, maybe I’ll go through the trouble of mailing it off.