Zinc plating

[petejw]

theyve come up looking really good,
thanx for posting.

[Giggity]

More info with a video:
http://www.eastwood.com/ew-electropl...FQUmbAodUjdhTA

[petejw]

the metal blackening kit looks pretty good too.

[cppd1]

More info with a video:
http://www.eastwood.com/ew-electropl...FQUmbAodUjdhTA

The eastwood kit does not do aluminum.

[James England]

Hope I'm not getting boring

At the risk of people thinking I have acquired a zinc plating fetish, I thought I would post one more photo. These show the results of plating the cylinder head oil feed pipe. The pipe itself is some sort of copper alloy and the banjo ends are solid brass, soldered on. I neglected to take a photo before but suffice it so say, that the pipe was black, filthy and looking awful... so much so I started looking for a NOS one.

I stripped it with the Expro32, lightly sanded it with fine sandpaper and then plated it for about 45 minutes. Here are the results!

[crazy steve]

The kit James has looks like a pretty good deal, but unfortunately is only available in Britain and the EU; they don't (or can't) ship anywhere else. I did some looking around online, and the kits available here either lack some of the chemicals his has, or cost a whole lot more than there (and I don't think even the 'better' kits offer the quite the same process).

Bummer....

[b.walker5]

If James could post the exact name of the chemicals required, and the pdf of the instructions to photobucket, I'm sure you would be able to purchase the bits needed locally. It looks to me like the rest of the stuff is fairly garden variety hardware and should be easy to duplicate. Copper pipe, buckets and battery chargers are already in most peoples garages. Zinc electrodes might be a little harder to track down, but marine supplies stores would be where I would start looking. Jaycar or Radio Shack would be worth a look also.

[James England]

If James could post the exact name of the chemicals required, and the pdf of the instructions to photobucket, I'm sure you would be able to purchase the bits needed locally. It looks to me like the rest of the stuff is fairly garden variety hardware and should be easy to duplicate. Copper pipe, buckets and battery chargers are already in most peoples garages. Zinc electrodes might be a little harder to track down, but marine supplies stores would be where I would start looking. Jaycar or Radio Shack would be worth a look also.

Yes, I'll do that tomorrow. I'll weigh the chemicals too, so you get the proportions correct. The kit I bought has sufficient for making two 4 litre batches of electrolyte and the chemicals are weighed out ready to use. You'll need to buy some resistor wire in order to make a simple voltage adjuster. Tell you what, I can e-mail you the PDF instructions that came with the kit. Just PM me your e-mail address and I'll send you it....

Tonight I did the bracket on my bike which holds the rear mudguard (under the seat) ... also the tube which goes around the front engine mounting bolt, across the front of the engine. Amazing!

[crazy steve]

Well, the mystery is semi-solved....

After sending me the PDF containing the directions, etc, (Thanks James!) I found that James' kit contains some hazarous materials which must be ok to ship and sell to 'consumers' in the EU, but not elsewhere. The 'basic' plating chemicals are common (in fact, it appears that the seller gets these from the US) and non-hazardous, it's the 'brightener' and 'colorants' that have the nasty stuff in them. That explains why the US kits lack these. The PDF does have the MSDS pages included, but they note that these mixtures are 'propriatary' and simply lists the 'bad' ingredients, but doesn't do much for amounts or list any inert or non-hazardous content.

You may be able to pick these up locally, but you'll have to do some reseach to use them, or do some experimenting. Don't anybody blow yourselves up...

[b.walker5]

Check here for a brightner supplier in Medina, Ohio.

http://www.alchemcorp.com/id7.html

Zink Glo K seems to be the one needed for a potassium chloride bath. If you dont want a bright finish you dont have to use brightners, you just get a dull grey finish instead. Fine for non visible stuff that you dont want rusting.

Posting a few questions here http://forum.caswellplating.com/elec...nsumption.html might produce some more info as well.

[Shappers]

Cracking job James, I was also keen to do this type of work when I was rebuilding my bike but at that time I couldn't get anyone to ship the chemicals to Finland.

That seller you linked to does ship to the EU so I'm going to order up a kit to give it a go.

If the US guys want to do this then they have the largest dealer in this type of kit right here at home: http://www.caswellplating.com

BTW, I read that you were going all stainless on your bike. I also did the same. For the engine bolts you will need to use stainless bar and thread both ends because it is impossible to find bolts that long in stainless.

If I remember right there was just one long M8 bolt (105mm) on the middle gearbox that I couldn't replace with stainless.

[petejw]

never get sick of pics
keep em coming,
they're turming out really well.

[petejw]

found this one in aus
also available in a few other countries.



http://www.caswellplating.com.au/

[James England]

Cracking job James, I was also keen to do this type of work when I was rebuilding my bike but at that time I couldn't get anyone to ship the chemicals to Finland.

That seller you linked to does ship to the EU so I'm going to order up a kit to give it a go.

If the US guys want to do this then they have the largest dealer in this type of kit right here at home:

BTW, I read that you were going all stainless on your bike. I also did the same. For the engine bolts you will need to use stainless bar and thread both ends because it is impossible to find bolts that long in stainless.

If I remember right there was just one long M8 bolt (105mm) on the middle gearbox that I couldn't replace with stainless.

Yes, I used threaded bar! I also got a long stainless Allen bolt for the middle gearbox with no problem, here in the UK. It's the only long one on that gearbox and I paid approx £3 for it. Let me know if you want me to get you one and send it to you. Talking of engine mounts, you know the front one on the bike that goes through a metal tube? Yep... I removed the tube, cleaned it and.... zinc plated it. It comes up beautifully and I believe that that was the original factory finish. Really nice.

Good that you can get that kit to be sent to you in Finland. You need absolutely to remove all rust. I used a product called Expro32, available from www.expro-32.com It's excellent stuff and removed every trace of rust from my rear mudguard support bracket (which looked like something which had been buried for 50 years). You dilute some product into water and, if you heat it gently on a stove whilst the bike parts are in there, it quickens the chemical reaction immensely. Then degrease with something like paint thinners or similar solvent. Grease, or fingerprints will interfere with the galvanising process, so you have to make sure everything is clean.

[mro]

Could this be done to the inside of a fuel tank?

mro