Electro-Plating

[buildafriend]

Have you ever played with electro-plating? were you successful? I tried it on a quarter and I'm thinking of using it on an enclosure but I was not very successful. I want to improve on this.

[Seljer]

I've messed around a bit but haven't yet had what you could call success. I used laptop power supply with an automobile bulb to limit current to a couple of amps. I dipped a cotton ball in a solution copper sulfate and hooked it up to the + side with an alligator clip with the - side hooked up to the enclosure and painted the copper onto the enclosure.

Copper did deposit on the surface but it didn't adhere well, it was very flakey. It might be useable if I added good coat of lacquer. My idea was to get a nice blue/green patina finish. I ended up sanding it down and painting it the normal way.

[defaced]

I've done the opposite, electro etching. but I'm not sure that's going to help you much. 

The problems with plating (having talked to a few guys who work around it - whatever that's worth) tend to be with prep, depositing any base platings before your final plating, and maintaining current density.  I suspect the the oxide formed on aluminum will need to be removed to allow plating to be successful.  You might find some good info on the Caswell Plating site/forum. 

[R.G.]

Yep, as defaced says, check out the Caswell web site for plating supplies and advice.

Plating on aluminum and its common alloys in particular is difficult because of the almost-instant-forming oxide film. Surface prep is critical in plating, even more so than in painting. Plating anything on anything is possible, but so is interstellar flight; it may be impossibly demanding in terms of time, materials, precision, and energy/money.

The USA quarter is a sandwich of nickel alloys and a copper center. Both nickel and copper are relatively easy metals to plate, and are often used as under-layers to allow plating on difficult metals.