I finally found a chromer...
- Thread starter jeep4me
- Start date
- Tags chromer... finally found
If you need a lot of plating and nickel is O.K., which is the case with a lot of stuff, you might consider doing your own plating. Polish the stuff up, clean it and stick it in the 5 gallon tank for 30 minutes. Too hell with a 4 week turn-a-round! I refuse to put up with it. Also they can take their $35 fee for a tiny brake lever and stick it where the sun never shines. ME buy lunch for the fools that lost ALL the dash trim for my 38 Ford Standard Coupe? Not untill hell freezes over. A home set-up is not that expensive and is fun to do. One attached picture shows my nickel, copper and chrome tanks. But you really only need the nickel, it looks like chrome and is a lot easier to do. There's a "copy cad" tank there also but is not in the picture. Caswell sells all this stuff. Again, get a buffing wheel for your grinder and a nickel plate set-up and make life a lot easier and MUCH cheaper. The old Harley pictured was nickle and chrome plated by me with the exception of the large items such as the muffler and handle bars. Nuts, bolts, levers, covers and anything that fit in the tank is by me. Saved at least a grand or so on just this bike, not to mention my Royal Enfield and lots of parts for other projects over the last 7 years.
Nothing will explode. Ther are no dangerous votages. Chrome is a bit toxic to be messing with and you should wear gloves and ensure adaquate fresh air but I don't do much chrome because nickel satisfies most of my needs. For nickel and zink plating you only need .02 to.06 amps of DC current per square inch of area to be plated. That means lots of things can be plated with small batteries, or a big 6 volt [better than 12 volt] auto battery. Usuallly it's necessary to put a number of light bulbs inline to reduce the current so that it's not too much for small parts. Small battery chargers will also work. I was lucky enough to be given a proper 15 amp max variable power supply by a guy that owned a plating shop and used it for small stuff. What I'm saying is that the power supply is not a big deal. If .06 amps is required and the suface area is 40 square inches then only 2.4 amps is needed! If you wish to do chrome the requirement is 1 amp per square inch. A lot more current! The parts will often need to be "pickled" in a mild acid solution before plating so another bucket is needed for that. But I use buckets that have secure lids with clamp bands so there's no real danger haveing them sit around. The solutions do not 'go bad' with time so shelf life is not an issue. The solutions work best at certain temperatures and it's easy to get that requirement by useing inexpensive aquarium heaters. Go to Plating Kits Electroplating Kits Aluminum Anodizing Kits Powder Coating Systems Metal Polishing And Buffing Supplies - Caswell Inc. and take a look at the site. The downside of home plateing? It takes a permanate set up and therefore some floorspace. Not much but most of us already have a garage full of toys. My plating set up is in the basement right next to the paint booth. I'm not married.