Electroless Nickel Plating of Glass

[AndrewThompson]

Hi, this is my first post here and as I've not done anything like this before it probably contains plenty of basic/stupid assumptions but I'd be greatful for any help people can give me with the following problem.

Ok, my basic goal in this is to get a nickel plating which is at least a few microns thick (probably quite a bit thicker once the basic process has been sorted) onto a fine glass tube (the tube will be only a couple of mm in diameter if that makes any difference).

From what I have found when doing a bit of searching today the electroles nickel kits won't plate directly onto glass, so in searching for something that may be of use I came accross the "silvering" method below to get an initial plate of metal onto the glass tube.

How to Make Mirrors by Silvering Glass: 8 steps (with video) - wikiHow

My thinking then goes that once this plating of silver is in place it would be possible to deposit a much thicker layer of nickel down on top of the silver which in turn would then be strong enough to hold its self together around the glass tube.

My main questions about this process then are:

Will the electroless nickel plating kit plate onto a silver surface?

Will the electroless nickel plating kit damage the silver plating in any way (leading to voids or breaks in the final nickel plate)?

Is it possible to control the plating process well enough to get a consistent thickness of nickel plating in the range of a few microns or would the plating need to be much thicker to ensure a consistent plating thickness between batches?

How pure would the final nickel plate be?

And finaly if anyone here has any experience of trying to plate glass I would realy like to hear from you with regards to how you managed it and what the results were like.

Thanks,

Andrew.