Gold plating over SS blackener

[Zachary]

Hey fellas and femme fatales,
It's great to be here in the forum. Tons of great advice and techniques in here! My debut post comes from a place of inexperience and wandering curiosity, so take that into consideration when reading... I'm trying to achieve a fade from a matte black to a gold plating on a SS substrate. This is an ideal, but if it's not possible to either plate onto a blackened stainless steel (before or after sealing?), or blacken the gold plating to achieve a slight fade between the two, the next best alternative would be greatly appreciated. Again, it's great to be here. Any and all help is greatly appreciated! Thanks.

Zach

[spankey666]

one thing that comes to mind is photo masking. create a half tone fade stencil to mask off the black. it will be a series of tiny dots like a billboard poster so not a true fade, but will give that illusion as the dots are minute. then etch and gold plate as required. Goldfrap on this forum is the guy to talk to, he uses photo masking for sandblasting glass. i dont know how the mask will hold up in the gold solution, but he does gold plating too so might shed some light on this for you
To add
i've just read up a bit on this, and they seem to use a film type mask ?? so maybe not, screen printing emulsion is another alternative, paint on , expose stencil, wash off with water etch and plate