8 replies to this topic

[sir steve]

Hi any metal workers on this forum ; I need a few parts made in nickel silver. I have some in brass so Q2 does anyone have a supply
of nickel oxide or nickel acetate. Or know a reasonable Ni plating company Ni/ PTFE would be cool.

Steve.

[digger]

Hi any metal workers on this forum ; I need a few parts made in nickel silver. I have some in brass so Q2 does anyone have a supply
of nickel oxide or nickel acetate. Or know a reasonable Ni plating company Ni/ PTFE would be cool.

Steve.

I take it your brass tools are tarnishing a bit.

I would love to help on the machining, but I guess I would be too expensive. Have you tried your local machine shops?

I do not have the nickel salts you mention, however I do have nickel sulphate if you want to plate your brass tools yourself.

[sir steve]

I take it your brass tools are tarnishing a bit.

I would love to help on the machining, but I guess I would be too expensive. Have you tried your local machine shops?

I do not have the nickel salts you mention, however I do have nickel sulphate if you want to plate your brass tools yourself.

Will Nickel sulphate work. The video I saw uses a warm bath of nickel acetate and about 4 voltsome people say 13 volts. I only need about 50g or less for experiment. Would you sell me someor I could trade some thing. AP. Copper Benzoate maybe. Most of my tools were made for me by Wother Rich they are excellent and PTFE impregnated.This if for a different job. You said you would like to help on the machining but would be too expensive.I have some items I want making from solid nickel silver or tube. Not pyro I make bespoke cane rods. Thanks Steve.

[Arthur Brown]

http://www.pfonline....les/040102.html

You also need a nickel anode. Ni is plated from anode to cathode through a solution (Cr is plated from solution using inert(ish!) lead anodes.)

Forget voltage! look up a typical current density for your solution and calculate the surface area of product (amps/area) calculate the current required to deposit metal, then using rate calculations calculate thickness developed over time. Chrome is 8% current efficient most other materials are better several approaching 100%.

[digger]

Current density IS related to the voltage, remember ohms law V=IR. P.S. good link Arthur

I used to work in an elcroplating shop about 17 years ago when I was a wee nipper.

If you are going to have a go at plating your parts then you will need to ensure that they are absolutely clean. You will need to ensure that you have removed any grease and any oxide layer on the part.

We used to plate mainly steel parts so our pickling bath was nitric acid and our degreasing bath was sodium hydroxide with a water wash after each. I am not sure if these would work on brass.

The voltage that was used ranged between 2V and 4V.

If I remember correctly the electrolte solution that we used was about 10% nickel sulphate hexahydrate, yes we used nickel anodes. However there are many types of nickel plating and many of the solutions contained phosphourus compounds so the resulting plate was a nickel phospourus alloy (various percentages up to 10% as they have different hardnesses and corrosion resistances).

There are a great many electroless nickel kits out there on the market. These have the great advantage that they will even plate the internals of a part where the current just does not reach with conventional nickel plating. You also get a very smooth even coat of nickel on complicated parts with many angles. I believe Caswell do a good kit, but it is not that cheap.

Hope this helps

Edited by digger, 11 July 2009 - 11:10 AM.

[Arthur Brown]

Ohms law holds for linear resistive ccts, plating solutions are nothing like linear! Current is flow of electrons so in the tank is flow of metal onto cathode. You can estimate thickness by current and time / area and efficiency.

Electroless nickel is by far the easiest in small batches.

[digger]

Ohms law holds for linear resistive ccts, plating solutions are nothing like linear! Current is flow of electrons so in the tank is flow of metal onto cathode. You can estimate thickness by current and time / area and efficiency.

Electroless nickel is by far the easiest in small batches.

mmm I believe ohms law does hold for electroplating solutions. yes current determines the rate of deposition, but current IS detemined by the overall effective resistance of the bath (determined by separation of electrodes, pH, electrolyte concentration, corosion resistance etc etc). Therefore VOLTAGE proportional to the effective bath RESISTANCE multiplied by the CURRENT as in Ohms law. Clicky Clicky fourth paragraph.

[sir steve]

I take it your brass tools are tarnishing a bit.

I would love to help on the machining, but I guess I would be too expensive. Have you tried your local machine shops?

I do not have the nickel salts you mention, however I do have nickel sulphate if you want to plate your brass tools yourself.

Would you gift me a couple of ounces of Nickel Sulphate? er by you a pint, a draft of my new book. I dont think I can put my addreess
on this forum my email is Shumby"terra.es.

Thanks Steve

[dr thrust]

hmm , here's a couple of videos, on nickel plating useing, nickel oxide, making the solution
with the second part of the vid here plating 1 and plating part two, just need to find a sorce of nickel oxide now?