Anyone want to plate some small parts for me?

[UrineMachine]

I am leaning toward not buying a kit only because I don't think it will come out the way I want. I'd like for really high shine decorative plating. All I have is some small steel hardware (bolts, nuts, acorn nuts) that I will blast. I was wondering if anyone would be so gracious as to plate it for me?

[MrPontiac]

Machine, Im not afraid to try it, all depends when you say shine, how much, ive only been doing this off and on for about a yr. To get really a nice shine you really need more than just glassbeading the parts, they need polished degreased its all time consuming, i am willing to try a small batch for ya, All my parts ive done have been yellow copy caded, but ill illiminate the yellow dipping part, no big deal for me.

[UrineMachine]

Thanks Mr Pontiac - I decided to just use them as is. The truth is, I was being way too anal about this. I will just install them as is and "next time" i can figure out how to get my crazy shiny nickel plated bolts

[chromo]

Buy the Caswell brush plating system for chrome if your just doing some small parts like that. Easy to learn and use and it's real chrome.
Comes with everything you need for the plating and you can set up a small dip tank with it instead of brushing them one at a time also. Used Yogurt cups or small plastic bowls worked well as I recall.

The shine comes from the part to begin with. Clean well then Buff and polish your nuts and bolts till they shine like chrome themselfs almost. You can use a cheap Rotary tool for this, or better if you have it.
Then copper plate them, buff and polish till the copper shines like a copper mirror. Then Nickel plate over the copper it should look almost like a silver mirror, if not polish it, then chrome plate over the Nickel.

That's how you get a show chrome triple plate
It's not chrome plating 3 times on top of each other as some people have thought. I had a guy trying to sell me a hot rod, fancy triple plated show chrome bumpers on it, he kept telling me all about how they were chromed 3 times LOL
He paid big bucks to have the bumpers show chromed but he had NO idea really what he paid for at all.

Anyway, I loved and used the tar out of my Caswell Brush plating set and still do for the solutions I have left of it. I need to order more stuff now but spending my money on Powder coating stuff, then aluminum anodizing stuff will be coming up.

It got me started doing alot of stuff like that, then I moved on to making up some stuff myself and seeing how things worked.
I like copper and Brass stuff, as I got near running out of those I started making my own solutions for copper and brass for plating larger items. Saved the Caswell copper solution for when I do chrome parts now.
Maybe not the best quality and some impurities using scrap parts, but old cleaned copper pipe, wire and older brass plumbing fittings serve me well for many things for plating.

For a hotrod I will be building soon I am thinking of more copper and brass than chrome.
We see Chrome, paint, powder coat, anodized aluminum etc... on hotrods everyday, mostly store bought bolt on parts often on a normal average car also.
I seldom see polished Brass or copper plated steel valve covers though, I may do mine that way to be ODD and show off a bit more LOL