Plating over cold metal casting

[jh2ohouse]

I'm currently trying to cast a 7 inch tall statue in a Bronze finish. I've tried cold metal casting (adding bronze powder into the urethane) but I want a better finish.
With this process would there be enough metal in the casting for electro plating to work?
by volume I'm using
1 part metal powder
1 part A urethane
1 part B urethane
I can also change the type of metal powder if it helps.

Thanks

[dadkar2]

I doubt you will be able to plate this item in a conventional manner because the urethane is a very good insulator, and you don't have enough metal in the mix. The way you describe it, only 1/3 of the volume will be metallic. With this mix, the bronze particles will be insulated from one another fairly well.

You'll have to experiment with conductive paint or find someone to vacuum deposit a conductive surface such as aluminum on it for you. There's nothing "foolproof" out there. Some have had better luck than others with Silvaspray etc. It's always worth a try.

Ken

[C]

Hello,
Seems that we both have the same problem, I have used cold casting and was saddened at the finish of it. Then I wonder about plating.
I understand that the metal powder used in cold casting is better if you use more metal powder but it never came out the way I wanted, I am at this time talking to metal powder makers about a new production of a metal powder that is more concentrated, The standard metal powder used in cold casting is ( I am told) about 200 microns big and the new metal powder is only 50 microns which I think will make in have 4 times the metal content. If this helps with the process of plating the final result I do not know, But it is interesting to test and if I worked I could see a great deal of interest in the new powder. I wonder if it would work?
If anyone knows, Please let us all know
I also thought about thermal coating but I think that process would burn my cold cast sculpure to a cinder
The Future is coming and what it has to offer will be interesting, but all we can do is wait