Jump to content

DIY Electroplating


NickJ

Recommended Posts

On 21/05/2021 at 01:37, toy-mota said:

Has anyone looked into or used Jane kits from oz?

one of there 10litre zinc kits is $450aud shipped 

https://janekits.com.au/

I’ve got the janekits setup - started with the 10l kit and 5A power supply. Ended up upgrading the power supply to the 40A and getting an extra 10l kit to plate larger parts. The 5A power supply was OK for small strings of nuts and bolts - but didn’t have enough oomph for larger parts (headlight bucket mounts for example). Get yourself some of the Jane clean too - works wonders stripping old plating off bolts without the nastyness of hydrochloric acid. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 8 months later...
  • Replies 41
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Top Posters In This Topic

  • 2 months later...
On 29/05/2021 at 01:20, MS51HT said:

I’ve got the janekits setup - started with the 10l kit and 5A power supply. Ended up upgrading the power supply to the 40A and getting an extra 10l kit to plate larger parts. The 5A power supply was OK for small strings of nuts and bolts - but didn’t have enough oomph for larger parts (headlight bucket mounts for example). Get yourself some of the Jane clean too - works wonders stripping old plating off bolts without the nastyness of hydrochloric acid. 

This shipped to NZ?? Ive been looking at the copper forming kit (this is how i found this forum/your post), but didn't think it would get through customs.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...
  • 3 weeks later...
On 29/05/2021 at 01:20, MS51HT said:

I’ve got the janekits setup - started with the 10l kit and 5A power supply. Ended up upgrading the power supply to the 40A and getting an extra 10l kit to plate larger parts. The 5A power supply was OK for small strings of nuts and bolts - but didn’t have enough oomph for larger parts (headlight bucket mounts for example). Get yourself some of the Jane clean too - works wonders stripping old plating off bolts without the nastyness of hydrochloric acid. 

What sort of amps did you find works best for bolts?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, tomble said:

Jane kits ships to NZ and sells gold bright chromate (among others).  You just need to contact them directly w/ address as they have to get the shipping quote manually.

You bloody ripper! My eyes lit up when you posted those pics on your build thread, all we needed was someone to see if shipping would work, thanks for doing the honours!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, NickJ said:

You bloody ripper! My eyes lit up when you posted those pics on your build thread, all we needed was someone to see if shipping would work, thanks for doing the honours!

Haha glad to have cleared it up then :).  Shipping was totally painless, nobody confiscated my cocaine.

Now I'm just trying to actually nail down the plating itself lol

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
  • 5 months later...

After much thinking and reading through Tomble's efforts I've realised that DIY electroplating is not something I wish to master.

The hardware I have is all pretty manky and not really something I wish to invest much into as new bolt kits for the car are available and cheap.

And then Parkerising crossed my path...

Blast then boil in Phosphoric acid and Manganese Dioxide.

While not as durable as zinc plating, it did give me something to mess around with, first of all a trial with Manganese Oxide extracted from Alkaline batteries and acid from Supercheap which came out pretty good.325604355_631426035650889_1552651171961035995_n.jpeg.4ec034396a1836b38e514da4fdac08ee.jpeg

Pre-blast on the left, "Parkerised" on the right.

I've now got my hands on real deal Manganese Dioxide and been a bit more careful with prep, the result is a nice dark green/black, more than sufficient for my needs.

F5365CB2-6C83-4723-89CC-44CEC781227B.jpeg.bd1f9221068bda02abed00b2f9fc2faa.jpeg

 

  • Like 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...