Nickel plating on metal glasses

[eyetailorjerry]

Hi all,

I am learning how to plate nickel and gold color on metal glasses(nickel silver material). I found my workpiece gets bright nickel color in seconds when I set it at 3.5 amp. However, I found the color gets dull or turned dark (looks burned) when I leave it in the beaker over 1 minutes. Could anyone tell me what did I do wrong?? Maybe the copper wire I use is too thin (1 mm dia)??

Thanks in advance

Jerry

[lcaswell]

You haven't really given us enough detail to go on, but it sounds like you're hitting the glasses with WAY too much power. Low and slow is a better method.

Nickel requires 0.07 amps per square inch of part surface area, for approx 30-60 mins, so unless your glasses are 50 square inches in surface area, you're using too much.