Metal plating & cleaning part 2

[Purple_rob]

Evening all,

I previously posted about cleaning and plating and thought I'd share with you all the work and progress I have made.

For those who havnt seen the previous post, I wanted to refurb parts myself and clean and Zinc plate them.

Finding a kit on Ebay I contacted the seller and got a nice price on a kit.

After testing a few items, like a nice penny etc I started the car parts. And below are the results


The pics below basically shows the whole process.

I found that using a voltage through the Bilt hammer cleaner it was very efficient and stripped the rust of very quickly.

As for the electrolite etc, this was from the standard kit.

It seems extremely hard to get the voltage right on plating bigger items.

Hope you all enjoy!

[raj]

looking good mate also im wondering, is it possible to zinc coat for longer? im thinking this may make the gold colour abit darker as you would find on alot of gen renault parts???

[Purple_rob]

The colour is dependent on the passivating part (the final dip after the zinc plating).

I should think for a stronger colour you could just increase the amount of solution to the water.

Its extremely hard as you've mentioned before to get a nice finish with pitted items. New items seem to hold the yellow better. (probably because the zinc is shinier behind it)

[Purple_rob]

Just to add for info: The yellow of the electrolite in the middle picture has no reflection of the colour of the plating. It just happens to be yellow ish.

The final colour Yellow or Clear comes from the final stage (sorry no picture). It just a 40 second dip to passivate it as mentioned above.