RS Motorsport :: Classic Speed Restored

Earlier this year I began investigating DIY electroplating, in the hope of helping out with any future restorations. A bit of research uncovered a couple of local companies that deal with DIY electroplating supplies, Caswell and Jane Kits . I've purchased parts from both places without issue.

Electroplating basically uses controlled electrical current through an electrolyte to place a fine layer of material onto the base metal. The electrolyte supposedly lasts a very long time and doesn't need continual replacement so the only 'running' cost is the zinc, nickel etc ingots that provide the plating layer.

In the case of zinc plating, the zinc layer acts as a sacrificial layer and will corrode away before the base metal. Most of the small brackets, clips, bolts etc on an old car can be cleaned up and zinc plated to look as good as new.

As well as zinc plating, copper, nickel and chrome (to name a few) can be plated also. I've only briefly played with nickel plating as most of the parts i've done already only needed to be zinc plated.

The power supply can be a substantial outlay, there are cheaper alternatives than the one I got, but this one is quite flexible and hasn't been a problem.

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This is a typical drum tank setup. The anodes (zinc, nickel etc ingots) are hung from copper tubes on the outside of the tank and are hooked up to the positive side of the power supply. The workpiece(s) is hung from the centre copper tube and hooked up to the negative side of the power supply. Zinc plating can be achieved at room temp (above 20 deg) while the nickel plating solution needs to be elevated to 50 degrees.

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Hanging parts individually is OK for the larger pieces, but extremely tedious for smaller clips and bolts/nuts etc. So i've recently made this barrel plating bath to make things a bit easier. It got its first workout today and passed with flying colours.

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Succesful plating requires an absolutely clean base metal. The JaneClean solution (some form of acid) does a great job of removing any existing zinc plating and rust. I usually give everything a good clean first in the bead blaster as well.

There's been a lot of trial and error sofar, but also a lot of more than acceptable results too. Once the zinc plating process is complete the option exists to apply a gold (among others) passivate. The passivate provides an additional wearing barrier to the zinc layer, although it must be left for 5 days or so to 'dry' before handling. The depth of colour depends on the length of immersion in the passivate, as can be seen in the pics i went a bit long with some of them! This doesn't matter because if you really don't like it you can easily strip it and re-plate.

Heres some bits (before and after) that I've done already:

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These were done today in the barrel plater:

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so when can we start sending you stuff

Are you baking after to avoid hydrogen embrittlement ?

John,
is that only a problem/need with high tensile components or all steel?

JP

It's more of a problem with higher tensile steels. Most of the stuff i'll be doing won't be mechanically critical, i'll let you know if my headlights fall out because of it!

All steels, usually the lower grades aren't loaded so it doesn't become a problem.

Some of those bits look like heat treated springy things.

They're just clips to hold a glass headlight lens to a plastic body.

cool work.

Can you plate things black?

No, i don't think its anywhere near as serious as hydroflouric, more likely hydrochloric as it dissolves the zinc plating and neutralises any rust.

Black, gold, 'blue' and olive chromates are available as a dip immediately after zinc plating. The chromates provide an extra protective layer over just zinc plating alone.