Conductive painting pot metal

[tbreaden]

Has anyone tried to repair pitted pot metal with sand blasting, then apply a body type filler, sand down, Paint with conductive paint. Then electro plate? Thanks, Todd

[uricad]

This is probably not what your looking for, but I think that real chrome in a can looks pretty good. One of my customers wants me to try it on some of his pot metal. The kit is around $120.00, and you'd prep the piece like any that would be based and cleared. As you know, pot metal sucks. This seems to be a cheap and easy way of restoring it(to a chrome finish). http://www.alsacorp.com/products/kit...nt_kitsNEW.htm

Good Luck!

[CarWiz]

Even if the process was successful, I doubt the plating would hold up. As soon as the filler starts shrinking or expanding, the plate will crack. The best tried and true method is to flash plate it with copper then give it a good build up in an acid copper plate. Sand that down to level pitting then do your final plating process. If the pits are deep, you can flash plate it then solder-fill the pits and sand that down. Using a filler like Bondo will only give you grief.

[tbreaden]

I have tried the soldering and acid copper method. But it takes so long nobody wants to pay what you need to charge. Most of what I get is 50 years old or more, and a pitted really bad. I have been turning pieces like this away all the time. Todd

[Kyrasis6]

I agree with CarWiz, I haven't plated anything yet trying this sort of process but I experimented with powdercoating thinking if the filler material held up in the oven it would be fine....

Problem I had was customers returning parts because the powdercoating would crack off in those spots. Atleast with powdercoating the only filler I found to work ok was steel filled epoxy, which I think is the same thing Caswell sells. This may work for the plating but sanding it smooth won't be any faster than the copper plating.

Perhaps you should take one of these parts to a place that restores old chrome parts and see what they would charge and then inform your customers that they won't find any place cheaper to have it done at. It is not cheap to restore a 50 year old part that is badly deteriorated, if you're customers don't realize this they need to find a different hobby.

[CarWiz]

Well, I've only been restoring cars for about 40 years so there may be other ways to do it but certainly not better. It depends on your clientele whether you go with the cheap/quick fix or if you do it right. I've had parts so bad and so rare that I had to cast a new part. (Actually two--One from the orginal as a build-up pattern then the real one.) The owner was quite happy with the reproduction and willing to pay to have the part. I've had others say just blast it and paint it and I've told them to take it somewhere else. Your reputation will follow you for all things so make your choices wisely.

I will say this; if someone filled my 31 Chrysler Imperial hood ornament with Bondo, they'd be buying the $1800 piece to put on their shelf. Many owners feel the same way so you better know your customer or explain your fix will not last more than a year.

[KCV6]

If you really want to fill with something that won't crack or move there is only one to use.....Devcon. Go to the devcon site and read up. we repair machined items and precision re-machine the devcon repair.

When mixing epoxies, always use a vac chamber to get the bubbles out. Easy to do, use a suitable plastic container (food storage lunch box) put a rubber strip around the edge where the lid goes and cut a hole in the bottom and put a rubber gland around of suitable size that will seals the pipe of a home vac cleaner. Mix epoxy in small container, place vac lunch box over it on a smooth flat surfac and turn the vac on. This of course has nothing to do with the question, but it's a good trick and I'm tired. LOL

Devcon is metalized epoxy.