My overal impression of the Copy Cad System

[trickware121]

I like to share my comments regarding the Zinc Copy Cad system I purchased.


Purpose

Reason I purchased this system was to electroplate around 50 nuts, bolts, washers and misc. fasteners for a motorcycle restoration project. In the past I purchased nuts, bolts and washers but it got expensive real quick and the bolts just didn’t look the same as the OEM issued fasteners.

Caswell Manual

After spending a few hours browsing and reading the manual, I can now say it’s a pretty good piece of literature. When I first dug into it, it seemed jam packed with information I didn’t feel was relevant to the kit I purchased. I would suggest re-organizing the manual to in to two sections: section one “Background/Getting Started” and section two containing individual instructions for each specific kit. When I first started plating, I had to tab a lot of important pages such as the Copy Cad kit instruction and the surface area formulas. None of the information seems to be packaged for convenient or more important quick reading. I wanted to start plating part, not read! Also, be sure you click the link to the tutorials posted on the website. Those tutorials are good learning tools to get started.

Setting up the Chemicals

The chemical/ingredient packages are labeled with the volume and weight which made the mixing simple. No special scales or graduated flasks were needed. Those 1.5 gallon plastic pales came in handy when storing the chemicals because of the sealed lid. Nice simple touch. Also, I like the fact I can use the electrolyte solution indefinitely…or for a long period of time.

Calculating Surface Area

My first iteration of plating I roughly calculated the surface area of four bolts and set the amperage. Plating came out very dull grey even with brightner in the solution. I tried more bolts and got the same result. I then sat down and patiently and tediously calculated the surface area of each nut, bolt and washer accurately. Well, my results improved 100% over roughly calculating the surface area. I achieved acceptable surface finishes by multiplying all surface area calculations by .14 to get the required amperage.

Estimating Plating Time

My goal was to plate approximately 100 nuts, bolts, washers and misc. fasteners. I made a table listing each fastener and its required amperage. Knowing that each “batch” of plating takes about 10 minutes, I started estimating how much time plating 100 fasteners would take…well it added up to be several hours! I would recommend to those who are new to plating to make a table to estimate your plating time. The table saved me so much time because I am limited to a 3 amp power supply. Knowing the the amperage needed for each fastener, I tried to maximum my plating time by plating fasteners in batches whose required amperage summed 2 to 3 amps. I started last week and I am still not finished with my fasteners. If you plan to do plating once, then I would save your time and take it to a shop to save yourself time and aggravation.

Preperation of Plated Parts

Spend plenty of time cleaning the parts to be plated. This is how I cleaned my fasteners:

1. If needed, sprayed with carburetor cleaner to remove years of oily crude.
2. Then washed with Simple Green.
3. After washing, I bead blasted until a grey dull finish was evident.
4. I then used a 6” diameter Nylon Mesh wheel attached to my buffing motor to remove
imperfection, scratches, scale, nicks, etc. For those interested, check
www.mcmaster.com, part number 4670A11.

Note: I tried using little red Nylon wheel supplied with the Copy Cad kit but it didn’t work very well for me. It removed crude and the selected areas of the original zinc plating but it took too much time. The Nylon Mesh wheel listed above is the ticket, but it cost $60 dollars. In my opinion, it was well worth the money.


Controlling the Electrolyte Temperature

I burned up the heater control on my first iteration of plating. I don’t know what exactly happen but I did hear a pop then I saw a spark and now it doesn’t work. I discovered the controller is not really needed for the Copy Cad system. If you heat the solution with the heater supplied to 110°F you can turn the heater off and plate for a hour. The solution maintains temperature very well but I did overheat the solution to 150°F once and the plating came out very dull. Allowed the temperature to cool to 110°F (took about 1.5hours) and the plating was shinny again.

Power Supply

When I purchased the Copy Cad system, I must have overlooked I needed to purchase a power supply. I just checked the website advertisement and no where does it say a power supply is required to operate the kit. The advertisement shows a package of “electronics” that I thought would be everything I needed to start plating my nuts and bolts. Remember, I am just a do-it-yourselfer with no prior experience at plating. Wrong, the “electronics” package was a pump, heaters and a heater controller. I hustled down to Fry’s electronics and purchased a 3amp power supply for $125 dollars. After reading the manual I made sure I selected a power supply where I could control the amperage at a constant setting. After calculating surface area and multiplying by the .14 factor, I realized a 3 amp power supply is pretty damn whimpy to plate larger parts. I wish I would have purchased an unit with a larger amperage capacity. For instance, the motorcycle axl which I was trying to plate required much more than the 3 amps I had available. And a half dozen 3/8” x 1 hex bolts would be pushing the amperage limitations.

Final Results and Overall Impression

I’m very pleased with the Copy Cad results of my fasteners. The finish of most fasteners was bright silver zinc and not the dull finish you hear so much about on this forum. I got good results when I started following directions specified in the manual. Yes, follow directions! My good results were directly related to the many hours spent cleaning and polishing my fasteners, calculating surface area accurately to get the proper amperage and maintaining the electrolyte bath at the correct temperature. After I got familiar with the system, everything came easy and felt less tedious and aggravating.

I’m glade I purchased the system because not only did I learn about electroplating; I added value to my motorcycle restoration abilities.

I would recommend this system for smaller parts like nuts and bolts because the kit only comes with enough chemicals to make only 1.5 gallons of electrolyte. When I plated, I only plated 4 or 5 bolts at a time because I was limited by amperage. Don’t expect to throw in 30 3/8” x 1” long bolts and expect to plate them in 10 minutes. The system is called miniature for a reason.