Plating Aluminum

[rdcycle]

Do you have to use pickle #3 when plating aluminum? is it really important?
AFter you zincate the aluminum do you go to flash copper or nickel? Which one is better? And after you do the flash copper do you need to go to bright copper or just right to the nickel. Im just going by what the manual tells me when i got the triple chrome kit.
Im trying to plate a Aluminum motorcycle(not a harley) brake caliaper bracket. I need all the help i can get. Thanks

[rdcycle]

plus

anyone with plating aluminum expertise, sure can use your help. I keep getting these bubbles. It seem like they appear when i buff them? What am i doing wrong? please help

[krsimulis]

Id like to hear about how things ended up. I am about to plate my first motorcycle piece after weeks of stripping and polishing. What I have learned so far is that we both picked the worst aluminum pieces to plate. The aluminum on motorcycle parts suck. I do have alot of interesting helpful tips if you want to hear them all. I basically tried everything known to make stripping, polishing, and sanding go faster cheaper, and more consistent. Spent alot of time and money, but its paid off, well not really paid off, but at least I know how to do it right from the jump.
As for your questions, I do know a few things. You don't actually have to use flash copper, you can go straight to the nickel if you want. The flash copper is used (but not always) for covering up imperfections and allows you to fix problems by adding layers and polishing. But since you are working on a motorcycle piece that you stripped the anodize layer off, you won't really need it. And you also won't need the #3 pickle. It is used more for stripping **** off of the aluminum, but won't help on the anodize. Trust me, I tried, and even tried that wrong with 0 parts waters, 1 part muriatic acid, bad idea. That is in my upcoming book about What not to Do, and the other book, What can you do that will cost you the most Money. From what I understand, the bubbles come from either not having an agitator, or poor agitation. Let me know how things have been going, I haven't found anyone else doing these parts off of bikes. I have a couple of complete peg bracket assemblies I am about to try, along with a tripple tree and a few other small aluminum parts.
kenny
This is the first part I polished for my 2001 ZX9R