My first plate, and WHAT HAPPENED, HELP ME

[bhhodges]

the bandages help keep particle contamination out of the plating solution, there is really no need to remove the anodes if you plate on a daily basis only if your gonna say plate this weekend and maybe not again for a while, when i first started out i would remove mine each time i plated and then replace them the next day.

when you plated the first part did you have the positive connected to the anode and the part connected to the negative , i know this sounds silly but i have reversed my connections more than once

i really dont think with 2 parts done you have contamination in your bath


bill

[krsimulis]

Your never going to believe it, but IT WORKED. You should see it in the picture below. The picture doesn't really do it justice, and you cannot see any copper on that piece, and it does have a nice bright shine. This time on the copper pipe, I only used the area on the ouside, plus I also sanded the outside of it just in case there was any coating on it, or any other garbage. Instead of relying on what values my lightbulbs say, I used the multimeter at the beggining and adjusted the current accordingly. I also polished one end of the bar to see what it looked like on both sides, to see how the prep affected it. But the one thing I thing made a difference was the agitator. I tried it out on an empty bucket, and from that, figured out the right way to stick the pump in the solution to get some agitation. Whatever it was, it worked.

One thing did happen. I took it out and it looked a little dull. I started to rinse it off and I touched it with my finger. At this point, there seemed to be a discoloration on the outside. So I took it to polisher for a few seconds, and really used the polisher to just remove the coating that was on there. What is that coat? The picture above that you put up, did that come straight from the bucket, or did you have to rinse it off or do anything else? My coat looks good, but it does not look as smooth as yours does up there. And also doesn't look as good as the previous shine I put on it before putting it in..
Man I really appreciate the help,
Kenny

[bhhodges]

kenny,

great, great, great, man that piece really looks fine to me. one thing to remember copper pipe has a lot of imperfections in it, so if you only lightly sand it you will see imperfictions after you nickel plate it. remember from my post the pipe i did today was nickel plated then today i copper plated over the nickel and then nickel plated it again that is why its much smoother looking.

did you buff the copper pipe before you nickel plated/copy chromed it? if you didnt ---sand it with 600 grit paper then buff it with a soft wheel and white or brown compound and then go thru the steps again and you will see an even brighter finish.


no i didnt buff my piece or anything, the look is right out of the nickel tank.

now write down the exact steps you did so you can reference back to them, and do another run with another piece of pipe . when i first started out less than a year ago i wrote down exactly what i did and when , and the most important thing is do it the same way everytime .


im glad everything came together for you so keep up the good work , im headed down to fl. for a while but will have my laptop if you need anything else.


bill

[krsimulis]

The more I read, and do some parts, the more I think I have contaminated my solution by plating aluminum. It talks about zinc and a zinc plated surface contaminates the solution. But that is the only way I can plate the aluminum. My aluminum pieces look horrible, they come out dark, discolored, and have the orange peal effect. I don't know what to do, I can't imagine constantly needing to strain my solution and put brightner in again.

That is one thing I can't figure out with the Nickel and the Copy chrome instructions put together. It doesn't tell me whether I should put all of the brightner in the bucket at once, or not use it until I need it. When I took my plated copper pipe out, it also came with alot of little pits, and was discolored until I buffed it out.

I think I jacked it up from the get go with the first aluminum piece I did. Everything was fine until that. Its not my agitation because I went and bought an air pump, and it works really well. If I can't plate aluminum, all of this is useless to me. Somebody let me know if you have any suggestions on plating aluminum.
thanks,
Kenny

[mtlgd]

Originally Posted by krsimulis

The more I read, and do some parts, the more I think I have contaminated my solution by plating aluminum. It talks about zinc and a zinc plated surface contaminates the solution.

<<<<snip>>>>

Kenny

I saw that too, so I asked Caswel about it. This is the excerpt from that PRS report.

Comment/Problem: So your saying that I can plate Aluminum Zincated parts with the Nickel I recieved in my Tripple Chrome kit, and subsequently the Chrome with-out trashing my solutions? (as indicated by the web site) I appologize, but I'm totally new in this field, and I am attempting to absorb as much information as possible. But these appear to be conflicting statements in the manual.

Solution:
Yes, thats what I'm saying. The amount of zinc that is deposited by zincate is not worth considering in this situation.



Hope this puts your mind at ease....

[krsimulis]

Thanks man, that does put my mind at ease. I wish every part I was doing wasnt' aluminum. I figure if I do enough aluminum, it will eventually destroy my solution. I am trying to find out a way help my solution out with the zincate that is going in.
thanks,
Kenny

[mcaswell]

If you reach a point where you think the solution is contaminated, simply plate a corrugated dummy to get rid of it.

Also, we're getting reports in that Copy Chrome is working better at room temperature - less grey deposit to buff off.

[krsimulis]

Thanks for the info, I wasn't sure what a dummy plate is, but I am going to plate a piece of steel tonight from someone else's advice at Caswell. I will also try it at room temperature and see what happens. I am getting a horrible looking black and multicolored residue on top of my plate. I can wipe it off, and polish it off and its just fine.
thanks,
Kenny

[lloyd]

Hey Caswell! What do I do when the room temp is 110 degrees lloyd

[dagobert]

Originally Posted by caswell

If you reach a point where you think the solution is contaminated, simply plate a corrugated dummy to get rid of it.

Also, we're getting reports in that Copy Chrome is working better at room temperature - less grey deposit to buff off.

Curiousity's sake; does that apply to the regular nickel plating in triple chroming as well, or is that just for copy chrome?