Amongst the knowledgeable readers, someone may be able to point me in the appropriate direction. Brass buttons (pipe band uniforms) tarnish rapidly, volunteer pipers prefer to spend more time playing than polishing. Problem is to keep the buttons shiny. Gold plate would be nice but at $10/button expensive (1000 + buttons for the band). What types of plating are available that will give a "permanent" shiny brass/gold appearance? I have heard that chrome plate can be coloured but cannot find details. Back in my army days, I remember "Everbrite or Staybrite" buttons were just coming into use, they would be perfect if available at the right price. All assistance will be appreciated; flames and snarky comments will be rewarded with untuned pipe serenades at 4 am. Thanks Ray
OT: Plating
Jan 16, 2007
10 Replies
I doubt you'd save much using other forms of plating. It doesn't take much gold to plate a button. Much (most?) of the cost is in set-up, i.e., stringing the buttons up so they'll plate, etc.
I would, therefore, suggest doing what they do with brass band instruments: give them a good polish and, usually, an acid dip and then spray them with gold lacquer. Any musical instrument repair shop can tell you all about it...
Jerry
"Jerry Foster" wrote: (clip) give them a good polish and, usually, an acid dip and then spray them with gold lacquer. (clip) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Why not clear lacquer?
Nikolas sell a clear and a gold-tinted spraybomb of lacquer for musical instruments. Excellent stuff! /mark
Leo Lichtman wrote:
Brush plate with gold. Cost per button would be a few pence because it doesn't take much. More on this tomorrow, it's time for me to crash.
That's an excellent suggestion, but understand that without a barrier plating of nickel, the gold will migrate into the brass, eventually tarnishing just as before. That's the reason you find such a layer of plating under electronic products, such as old wire wrap pins. The migration of gold and silver into other metals is well documented by the book The Metallurgy of Gold, Sir. T.K. Rose, one of the leading authorities on gold in the last century.
Harold
Go to
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and study their systems. You might find something to do the job economically.
Yes.
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As Harold said, you'll first need a flash of nickel for a lasting job. Caswell has both electroless nickel and elctrolytic nickel. For buttons the electroless might be easier because you don't need much plate and you don't need to hook 'em up to anything -- just dunk 'em for a few minutes. This, however, would require removing the buttons while brush plating of nickel then gold could be done (very carefully) with the buttons in place. Caswell sells "plug 'n plate" kits for brushplating gold, nickel and other metals. They do have an affiliate in the UK:
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Here is another possibility. Their gold juice looks considerably less expensive than Caswell Europe but I have not tried their products:
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The hardest part of this project would be getting the buttons absolutely waterbreak clean with no trace of tarnish, wax or oils. It might actually be easier to cut them off, polish them, clean them ultrasonically, plate them and sew 'em back on.
Thats just like something I read about in a book I got out of the library years ago. Except they used a car battery and the carbon from an old C or D cell battery.
Anyone know what kind of amperage you'd be looking at on a system like that? Can't be too much powered from a wall wart the way it is in the picture.
It's not much help to you, but brass fixture manufacturers now market what they claim is a permanent, non-tarnishing brass finish. It is applied in a vacuum chamber by PVD (physical vapor deposition) processing. I don't know the composition of the finish, but it looks exactly like highly polished brass. You can see it today on plumbing and builder's hardware fixtures (door locks and knobs) and it typically has a lifetime guarantee against tarnishing. It seems to me that brass button makers are prime customers for the process.
Randy
They are well under 1 amp. It can easily be done with flashlight batteries.
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