Yellow Zinc / Cad plating

[Adax]

I have an unfortunate OCD trait that has me getting a little carried away with my FJ40 restoration. I decided to give Caswell's Copy-Cad electroplating system a try to see if I could duplicate the original finish on some of the hardware for aesthetic and corrosion resistance reasons. I've been plating various parts to figure out the system and get the desired results and overall I am very happy with the purchase. It takes several tries to get it right but here is the set-up and some of the results:


Power supply

Plating solutions

Bolt in the plating solution

A bunch of nuts strung up for plating with bead separators - this system did not work well - the beads centered the nuts preventing contact with the wire. Calculations of surface area to determine correct amperage are on the underlying paper.

Here are some yellow cadmium plated cone washers (I know they are not really visible but I'm using them to work out technique).

Some more yellow cad parts

Here are the yellow zinc parts. I'm really happy with the way these have been turning out.

Previous posts had mixed reviews of the Caswell system but I'm pretty happy with what I'm getting and would recommend it if you are into this sort of thing.

 

[lostmarbles]

Thanks for posting Alan.

I love to see others exhibiting OCD symptoms.

I'd follow your lead with the plating except it is extremely difficult (not to mention "very expensive" too) to get such gear in this part of the world.

Besides- The neighbours would probably smell the chemicals and then call the police thinking they'd discovered a P Lab. ... Then I'd have the Armed-Offenders-Squad smashing the dooor down!

 

[75/76FJ40]

The Yellow Zinc is spot on. It always bothered me that the replacement hardware from CCOT and others didn't have the factory look...I can truly appreciate and understand the OCD. Jealous of the signatures on the Audi motorsports card. For me it's land cruisers, VW's and Audi.

 

[rutbeer]

There's a plating shop just down the road from me. Seems like it was $65/100lbs.....except for parts requiring special jigging. I had a box chocked full of nuts, bolts, washers, you name it. There's no way they were wiring each bolt by itself like you are and still doing it for that kind of money. The only trick I had, was that they would not strip the bolts. Any paint on there, I had to deal with blasting the hardware first.
Out of curiousity, what does your system cost and yield over the longhaul compared to what I just quoted above?

For the record though, your last set looks MUCH better than what I got. Mine are more orange/yellow than light gold like your CAD parts. I would have preferred your yellow zinc finish.

 

[KillerPea]

I am jealous...my OCD is prodding me to call Caswell and order, but I've spent way too much time with my sandblasting and powdercoating setup....I would never get anything done if I started cad plating.

Not to Hijack, but does anyone have a good source for yellow cad bolts that are close in appearance??

 

[Adax]

I'm sure I could have found someone to do it cheaper but that would require me having my s*&% together enough to supply ALL the parts I wanted plated at once and been able to id them once they returned. Cost wasn't a major decider anyway, it is just something I wanted to do.

I paid $190 to Caswell, $140 for the power supply, $10 for acid at Lowes, $8 for wire, $4 for clips, distilled water is free. Probably about $40 in shipping. I plan to do some other stuff with the equipment (anodizing, chrome, etc) in the future.

So I'm clearly not saving money, but it's fun and cheaper than my psychiatrist.

Thanks for the compliments.

 

[fj404life]

The yellow zinc looks awesome!!!! Other is to gold for me...bling bling!
I really like the idea of being able to do small batch's at a time.
Curious about your powersupply...what voltage/amp are you using for plating.
I have a couple PS but no variable setups like that.
Also wondering if instead of the wire method you could just use mesh baskets like a deep fryer??
Would the hardware touching each other/the basket screw with the coating???

 

[tmarx]

That yellow zinch looks great. I had a bunch of parts, nuts and bolts done at my local platers with some mixed results. Somehow the smaller bits always seem to come out smart but the larger stuff not. Maybe dirty tanks and old solutions

 

[Adax]

The yellow zinc looks awesome!!!! Other is to gold for me...bling bling!
I really like the idea of being able to do small batch's at a time.
Curious about your powersupply...what voltage/amp are you using for plating.
I have a couple PS but no variable setups like that.
Also wondering if instead of the wire method you could just use mesh baskets like a deep fryer??
Would the hardware touching each other/the basket screw with the coating???

It's a 10A , 30V supply. You use it in constant current mode. The appropriate current varies with the surface area you are plating (0.14A/sq-in). Yes, If I was doing a lot of this I would use a rotisserie basket with a metal contact so I wouldn't have to rig up all the pieces. A metal basket has a lot of surface area so It's best to use a plastic one with an electrode than hangs down in the part pile. It's been done my many successfully.

 

[rockcrawler]

I would not trust platers with my stuff, too easy to loose parts, and anyway, where's the fun in getting someone else to do the work?

I made up my own plating setup, make up the electrolyte myself, same as what's used by commercial platers. I get the chromates from a place that supplies plating businesses and get the same results. Yes what I use is corrosive and you have to take some care in the handling of the chemicals but no more corrosive than a leaky alkaline battery, just more of it. There is no problem with getting chemicals from chemical suppliers, you can get anything you want... so long as you leave a transaction trail, then everyone is happy. You may have problems if you approach them with cash.

Sure it takes some experimentation to get the hang of it, but hard? When working out my amperage I don't spend too much time on calculations, just ballpark figures. If a part is relatively clean then all I use is an industrial strength degreaser, I find having to pickle parts in acid mostly unecessary.

If you decide to get into plating the thing you will most likely realize is that it isn't hard at all and that it's an excellent setup to have around and not just for your car restoration projects.

 

[Coolerman]

Excellent results!

I also looked at the Caswell plating kit, but decided to just powder coat everything on this truck. The next truck I may get their kit now that I see what it's capable of doing....

 

[joeyg1973]

That looks like a lot less work for a comparable price than the powder coating I went process I went through. My process entailed chemical/mechanical rust removal and degreasing, run in a vibratory tumbler to polish them for a week or more, prep them by taping off the threads or any other parts not to be coated, wire them to get current to them, coat them with PTBP 325 degree acrylic clear, watch the toaster oven very carefully for 15 minutes with an external thermometer because toaster ovens suck.

Yeah this looks cheaper and easier in my book.

BTW I have found that Auveco is the source for getting the right JIS nuts and bolts, including the captured washer nuts that are hard to find. I don't know if they make the bolts with the phillips head in them though as I didn't see that in their catalog. Just need to find the nearest Auveco dealer to get what you need.

http://www.auveco.com

 

[rockcrawler]

Here's a couple of tools I zinc plated a couple of days ago, finished off in yellow and blue chromate.

 

[rockcrawler]

more pics...

 

[lostmarbles]

OK. .... I'm convinced.

This is something I've got to get into when I retire and have all that endless spare time on my hands!

 

[rockcrawler]

Only took me an hour and a half to do both Tom, that's including pouring the chemicals back into the bottles and cleaning up (the part I hate).

 

[piecemeal]

I'm assuming either you guys had kids and they're out of the house, or you don't have any kids.... wow, this stuff is cool. I wish I had the time....

 

[rockcrawler]

I don't have kids but yes you have to make sure you have a spot that you can keep out of reach of kiddies when plating. I also store all my chemicals in one location in a locked section of my garage and don't have them spread around the joint.

 

[Coolerman]

You ever considered doing one off parts for folks who need just a piece or two done? You could quickly pay for the kit without swamping yourself...

 

[pportmd]

Totally impressed!!

...HONEY, I know what I want for my birthday!!!