Plating brass & Copy Chrome Kit

[Ken_NJ New User Find all posts View Profile Close Ken_NJ]

Need a little help and advice. Testing a Copy Chrome Kit on sheet brass. The brass was wet sanded with 2000 grit paper. Polished with rubbing compound and then Blue Magic Liquid Metal Polish. In the picture you can see the upper half is like a mirror as you can see the reflection of the Dawn bottle. The first time I applied nickel plating, it came out dull and uneven. For the second try I sanded the same sheet and polished. This time I washed it thoroughly with Dawn Ultra detergent and water. After plating it came out the same way. In the picture the cloth is what it looked like after removing it from the wand.

So am I doing something wrong?

[Ken_NJ New User Find all posts View Profile Close Ken_NJ]

Re: Plating brass & Copy Chrome Kit

Just measured the output voltage of the power supply. 8.85 volts, should be 4.5. That must be a problem,

[gsw3 Amateur Metal Finisher Find all posts View Profile Close gsw3]

Re: Plating brass & Copy Chrome Kit

Don't polish with any type of metal polish, use a buffing wheel with the proper buffing compound for the type of metal you are using and clean thoroughly so it passes the water break test (water should sheet on part and not bead up).

I once used Blue Magic metal polish on some brass medical fittings I custom machined (see photo) and after a through cleaning, plated them with nickel and some of the nickel plating started to flake off. Never had this happen before, however, I never used Blue Magic before either. I used it because my buffing wheel (the smallest Dremel cotton wheel I had) could not get into the small recessed areas which were critical to the function of the fitting).

I found out the Blue Magic polish contains silicone. It was absorbed in the minute pores of the metal.
Almost any commercial polish will contain chemicals you don't want to get on the metal and will be extremely difficult to remove.
I ended up having to strip off the nickel, ultrasonic cleaning the fittings with naphtha and then alkaline cleaner and replated them. It was a long night.