Silver plating

You will probably need to get it from a chemical supply company. When I was about 12 years old I worked out a way to make it from potassium ferrocyanide, which was easy to get hold of as it wasn't very toxic and often used in photography.

Leon

If there are jewellers/goldsmith supply houses and you are a customer with a buisiness presence they might sell to you, they will not deliver to a residence as far as I know. Nasty stuff in a world filled with fools.

Can't answer your question about cyanide free plating, but here in the States the jewelry supply houses generally sell plating solutions. It's not exactly an economical way to get where you're trying to go, but better than never getting there. It's getting almost impossible to buy chemicals of any kind here in the States.

You might consider talking to a plating house to see if they'd be willing to sell you what little you may need, assuming it's not against regs in your country. Dunno.

Harold

It's getting almost impossible to buy chemicals of

Bought a gallon of nitric acid ~12 years ago, waltzed right in an paid for it and waltzed right on out. Had I dropped the [glass] bottle in the parking lot it would have evaced the block.

Meebee its a good thing them regs is tough now. still have 3/4 of that bottle and sweat bullets every time I have to move it.

Without going into the gory detail, I can tell you from personal experience that it's difficult or impossible to get an acceptible silver plated surface without the use of cyanide based chemicals. The same is true for gold and other precious metals like rhodium.

You should be able to purchase the materials that you need from any electroplating supply firm, even in the UK, although as here in the US they may be unwilling to sell to individuals due to liability considerations.

Harry C.

That's pretty much what I thought. I need the best plating I can get - it's for the insides of the LOX pump in a small rocket engine turbopump. Any hints?

For years we in the UK used to have to sign the poisons register to buy cyanides, and you might have to get someone like a doctor or a policeman or your local MP to vouch for you if the seller didn't know you personally - pretty reasonable, and no direct seller liability problems (we don't in general have those here anyway, or at least not as bad as the US does).

I don't know if that's still true though, what with the HORRegulators, starring Nanny Blair and the Auntie-Terrorists.

The plating shop I used to use ran a phosphoric gold process, but I have no clue about how it was applied, nor if it was necessary to do a strike with cyanide first. They plated to Mil specs, and were highly respected and well known for their quality. Sadly, I no longer live in that state, so it would be difficult for me to inquire. Having refined precious metals, I understand that the introduction of certain metals to cyanide solution can be trouble. One of the procedures I used to use to recover gold or silver from solution was to introduce zinc flower. The reaction was almost instantaneous, with an almost perfect recovery. That can interfere with plating, just as iron interferes with copper plating from an acid electrolyte. There's a place for each process, and often they must be used in conjunction.

That would certainly be my thoughts, too. Still, if you can get someone to warm up to your project and share with them what you're trying to do, you never know-----every now and then you encounter someone that takes a personal interest and can't help enough. And then there's the other times---------------sigh.

Harold

How big is having a good power supply as part of the entire plating process. The reason for this question is that four 100 amp 10VDC power supplies HP6260B found their way into my home, and I am not sure whether I should keep one of them or sell all of them.

I would love to gold plate some perfectly inappropriate things, such as a bumper or parts of the boat trailer. Always had this strange desire.

Many years ago I used some produced by an outfit called, IIRC, "Dalic". It was _very_ good but expensive and I never could find a formula to make my own.

Ted

I'm far from an expert on plating, having done very little aside from some cyanide copper and gold, each of which was a long time ago.

I used to part silver electrolytically, however, so I'm slightly familiar with the process. One thing that's very desirable is to be able to control voltage, which, in turn, controls amperage. I would think that it would be desirable to have control from 0 to perhaps up as high as 30 volts, depending on what's being plated and how. If your supplies have variable output, I'd think they'd be ideal for plating, assuming you didn't have need for greater voltage. I built my power supply for silver parting, using a variac to control primary voltage.

Bound to be someone with plating experience that will set us both straight.

Harold

They have variable voltage and variable amps (you can control only one at a time directly, obviously), amps go up to 100, volts go up to

i

Along with Harold's idea - if it is small - how about a Silver Smith - Kitchen / Dinner Silver repair places.

Martin

Such inapproprate plated items are known as "bling".

Tim

-- "California is the breakfast state: fruits, nuts and flakes." Website:

I found an amusing link:

Gold only need .003 to .007 amps per square inch. Someone doing chrome might be interested in your supplies, because that takes lots of current. It might also be useful in anodizing large pieces.

I have no experience with this silver, but I've had excellent results from Caswell zinc, nickel and copper.

Mike Caswell is a former Brit, may know of someone in the UK that could help you.

FYI I'm still waiting for a refund for an item they ruined back last August. They are nice on the phone, but it took 3 months to find out they runied it, and they don't return phone calls.

Todd Rich wrote: (snip)

And in the interest of full disclosure, I got the promised check from them in the mail this last Monday.