Need your nickel / titanium plating advice pls

[wolsey]

Hi, as above really, i am trying to obtain a rainbow finish for a piece of steel, the more i research the more i am lead down the plating route.

Can nickel or titanium be plated then a current passed through it to bring out a varety of colours?

Any advice or knowledge is desperetly needed.

Thanks

[woodjames]

You won't be able to get a variety of colors out of nickel - pretty much yellow to dull grey is the range. Copper can get rather colorful with heat. I've seen titanium with an oxidized finish, such as anodized, that's rather colorful also, but have never seen a diy kit to do so... Here's a link I found by quickly googling, I encourage you to do the same for more info - http://www.metalast.com/documents/Te...ocesses/Ti.pdf You can get a little range of color from steel including yellows and blues using salts for gun blueing, I'm sure Caswell sells something to do it.

Hi, as above really, i am trying to obtain a rainbow finish for a piece of steel, the more i research the more i am lead down the plating route.

Can nickel or titanium be plated then a current passed through it to bring out a varety of colours?

Any advice or knowledge is desperetly needed.

Thanks

[wolsey]

Hi, thanks for the reply, believe me i have googled the life out of this one.

Yea gun blue and plum are the finishes available and unless i can get the anodized titanium look it will be where i go.

Just hoping it can be done somehow.

Thanks again. Will post a solution if i find one.

[CarWiz]

As already stated, nickel has it's limits. Titanium on the other hand can be anodized with a range of colors. I don't do it but as I recall it's controlled by voltage. Hope you find what you're looking for.

[spankey666]

taken from the caswell LCD anodising instruction book :

TITANIUM ANODISING
For reference only
Any electrolyte will do: phosphoric, coca-cola, sulfuric
Colors are achieved by varying oxide thickness and through refraction of light on titanium surface.
The color changes with the voltage rather than amperage.
Clean parts in 25%-30% nitric with 2-4 oz/gal HF
1-8 volts Yellow
9-12 volts Brown
13-20 volts Maroon
21-25 volts Blue
26-35 volts Green
36-45 volts Gold
46-50 volts Rose
70 volts purple/fuscia

[wolsey]

Thanks for that last post, great info.

What would happen if you did it once to create a base colour, could you then redo it and create two colours or would it just go the colour of the higher voltage

Thanks

[woodjames]

If my rectifier went past 7.5 volts I'd try it for you, as I've got some titanium anode baskets laying around. I would think you'd have to do it in steps, as it was being submerged. ie. 3 volts for the 1st 1/4'', 10 for the next 1/4''. Just shootin' from the hip - buy some titanium, a huge power supply and mess around, it's a really cool look when done right.

Thanks for that last post, great info.

What would happen if you did it once to create a base colour, could you then redo it and create two colours or would it just go the colour of the higher voltage

Thanks