Posted by David Sherman on Thursday, January 04, 2007 at 22:51:42 :
In Reply to: Re: Nickel Plating posted by WAG on Thursday, January 04, 2007 at 22:38:00 :
As I understand it, nickel plating is a lot easier to do well than chrome plating. That's why all the old plumbing fixtures were nickel rather than chrome. If I remember from back when I used to experiment with that stuff, you can do nickel directly over copper, brass, or bronze, though brass can be tricky in any acidic solution because of the zinc, but to plate iron you need to plate with copper first.
What I learned from my experiments is that even though the basic theoretical chemical reaction looks simple, there's a lot of art and magic to getting a plating that adheres well and has a nice finish. There are lots of little extra chemicals that are added to the plating solution to get good results. The temperature, pH, and current density are also very important, as is the spacing between the anode and cathode. The deeper the relief is, the harder it is to get even plating, just like with spray painting.
It might be fun to try it yourself if the parts are simple and you're not too picky, but if it's important to get a good finish the first time, take it to a plating shop. If you do it yourself, definitely get some official plating chemicals rather than trying to just use a nickel salt and some acid. The "secret sauce" is important. Also, if you do it yourself, you'll need to have a buffer to shine up the pieces after they're plated.