Nickel Plating Problems After Flash Copper

[KCV6]

Nope, straight to the next plating stage after activation. always activate and rinse as last step before going to plating

Cheers

[SLOSteve]

Hey Mark,

Okay, one last rundown before I dive in here......

Sandblast, degrease, fill pits (where necessary). Sand, degrease, activate, rinse and flash copper. Sand, degrease, activate, rinse then into nickel bath.

[SLOSteve]

Oh, and activation solution is 10% muriatic acid and distilled water.

[KCV6]

hey Steve,

pretty much it. however don't activate in Muriatic if you have any bare pot metal, it will eat the zinc away in the pot metal. I find a 10% sulfuric works well for activating zinc/pot metal.

hope it works out ok

cheers

[SLOSteve]

hey Steve,

pretty much it. however don't activate in Muriatic if you have any bare pot metal, it will eat the zinc away in the pot metal. I find a 10% sulfuric works well for activating zinc/pot metal.

hope it works out ok

cheers

Okay so I followed all the steps except I used muriatic acid to activate. There was some bubbling but very little and in an inconspicuous place on the part so I let it go. After 30 seconds I rinsed and went straight to the nickel bath at low amperage. I checked it after 5 minutes and noticed it was getting dark again but I left it in for about another 10 minutes......same result. Sooooooo...........I got out the 800 grit and sanded under tap water trying to remove the "charcoal-zebra" affect (for lack of a better term). It didn't work. Should I reblast the part or should I sand, flash chrome over the nickel and repeat the procedure again using sulphuric acid?

[SLOSteve]

What is the difference between muriatic and sulphuric acids? I know that battery acid is already diluted. Does it still need to be a 10/1 ratio?

[KCV6]

No, both have to be 10% acid by volume. for example...

The activator for nickel, copper and steel etc is hydrochloric. it has to be 10% hydrochloric, not 10% pool acid. most pool acid is 280g/L. Therefore to get 10% you want 100g/L so you mix 1 part pool acid with 2 parts water (clean tap water is fine for this, but if you want to be sure then use demineralised or distilled). So look on the pool acid label and in your case see how many ounces/gal or grams per litre it is to work out what mix it needs to be.

For sulphuric it is the same, it needs to be 10% sulphuric, so look at what the makeup is of the batery acid you have. It is often 420g/L so you only need to mix 60ml for every 10 litres of water. This is a bright dip for activating zinc only.

Have you checked the Ph of the nickel? Have you plated a test piece of copper pipe? This will give you a good indication of any problems with the mix.

Cheers

Mark