Experience of electroplating at home?

[JoeSmith]

Hi All

 

I don't know if this is the right place for this but I'm wondering how feasible it is to try to achieve professional looking results from using electroplating to copper plate metal using a home set up.  I've seen videos on youtube etc but haven't been impressed with the results.  Is this because you need to go to professionals or can anyone point me to a good resource where I can learn to do it to a decent finish.  The project I'm thinking of requires quite a bit of plating of small parts which I think is going to get costly hence trying to achieve results at home.  

 

Cheers

 

Joe

[Nobody Special]

Played with it a little. Definitely in plating, cleanliness is next to godliness.

[kubiack]

I looked into it some but it seemed more touble than it was worth at the time. I only had a few firearm parts to refinish so it was just not worths the effort and expense to get set up. Other than the cost my two main issues were the metal finishing requirements and disposing of the chemicals once the are spent. The finish of the plating is directly related to how well the metal being plated is finished. At the time I did not have any metal sanding and buffing equipment. Most of the chemicals used are considered hazardas and must be disposed of properly. The kits from http://www.caswellplating.com/ looked like a pretty good place to start.

[Steve Sells]

becuase of the pain, and expense, I hire out plating for my blade furnature when needed.  Usually its gold or Silver plating , but even with those expensive metals, its reasonable to hire out the plating job.  remember if you tell them they can wait for another job to run it with, you save a lot,  over needing it back right now.

[JNewman]

becuase of the pain, and expense, I hire out plating for my blade furnature when needed.  Usually its gold or Silver plating , but even with those expensive metals, its reasonable to hire out the plating job.  remember if you tell them they can wait for another job to run it with, you save a lot,  over needing it back right now.

You really don't want anything to do with plating gold or silver yourself.  The plating chemicals for gold and silver are cyanides.  I worked for a plating company for a few months and our gold solution included both gold cyanide and potassium cyanide. 

[Steve Sells]

there is another great reason not to try it. Franke plating in less than a mile from me, so I hire all plating to them here.  I tell them they can wait to run it with their next batch,  longest I had to wait was 2 weeks for return, well worth the savings :)

[JoeSmith]

Thanks all, I think my suspicions have been confirmed and I'll take the items down to a platers locally.  It's the idea of getting rid of the chemicals afterwards in the UK that just isn't even worth considering.  Thanks for the tip of asking them to put it in with another job to save money - nothing I do will be that urgent.  I'll give them a call.

 

Cheers

Joe

[the iron dwarf]

some plating is not too difficult depending on the items.

copper is prob one of the easier ones

 

where in the UK are you,I have some dealings with platers

[JoeSmith]

 

where in the UK are you,I have some dealings with platers

 

Somerset - Taunton/Wellington way.  I'd be grateful for a recommendation - it'll be motorbike parts for a renovation so nothing too big!  Cheers

[the iron dwarf]

im in Northants, I use a plater in coventry.

there should be places close to you.

you could also try copper sulphate, a glass of water, a piece of copper pipe or wire and a low voltage DC supply