engraved firearm electroless nickel

[powderhombre]

hello all, new person here. I have a firearm that has light factory engraving on frame and barrel. by light I mean it is fine lined and not very deep. I have decided electroless Nickel is the way to go. question is, how does one apply the plating without covering over the engraving? I assume it is a balance thing. trying to get as much plating on the gun while monitoring the etchings as it is being applied. am I on the right track here? or is there a method to doing it? thanks al

[amerdunbar]

I haven't worked with electroless plating, but from my experiences, the engraving will look the same after as before. For example, even a wire brushed part shows the marks after plating. Usually even fine lined engraving is deeper than that. Can you catch your fingernail on the engraved part? If so, I don't think you need to worry, unless to plan on building an extremely thick layer.

[mcaswell]

Electroless plating, unlike plating with an anode, lays down an extremely even layer over the entire surface area. It does this at a set rate dependent on time.
What this means is that all blemishes, marks, scratches etc. will look exactly the same as before plating.
Plating with an anode will plate high and low spots on a piece.

see http://www.caswellplating.com/movies/anodes.html

[powderhombre]

Since I have your attention, what about areas you do not want to plate? like the inside of the bore? I assume you do not coat with oil or something as you do not want to contaminate the plating solution during the plating process. not to mention using plating concentrate on areas that do not require it, so how is the best way to exclude conecting parts from the plate job. hope I made sense of this. thanks Al

[sross]

Originally Posted by powderhombre

Since I have your attention, what about areas you do not want to plate? like the inside of the bore? I assume you do not coat with oil or something as you do not want to contaminate the plating solution during the plating process. not to mention using plating concentrate on areas that do not require it, so how is the best way to exclude conecting parts from the plate job. hope I made sense of this. thanks Al

Caswell has a laquer mask that is allegedly good to 210-deg. I plate the bore on both barrels and cylinder. Blueing is done by driving tapered wood pegs into both ends . Blue is done at higher temps, so those that say the plugged ends will blow out may be in error. I think the wood allows the slight pressure to bleed off. The final pre-bath rinse in distilled water could be done at 180-deg or so instead of room temp. Then the metal wouldn't rise much.