- Joined
- Mar 30, 2017
- Messages
- 2,337
- Reaction score
- 818
- Location
- The Netherlands
- My Car
- 73 Grande 351C
71 Mach 1 429CJ
Hey guys,
There was this week a topic on how to restore our dash/shifter chrome plastics...
Because I'm doing some home plating for a while now, with pretty reasonable success on all kinds of parts using different metals, before I pick the way I will go to restore my 71's plastics,
I wanted to see if I could plate plastic in the first place!
Here's comes experiment #1!
Stating the obvious here: there is a problem, plastic is non conductive, which is kind of a bummer for electro plating!
Soo after searching/reading here and there, there are solutions to apply metal deposits on non conductive surfaces. Ranging from rocket science use of plasma and bombardment of particles within complex vacuum chambers.
And there is also a method to remedy the lack of conductivity that is much more in my alley: spray some conductive material onto the object and plate that.
Sooo because I like see stuffs for myself before taking a decision, I've looked into it and ordered my first candidate: A can of sprayable graphite.
the latter being known as a good conductor and this spray used in electronic solutions to build magnetic shields...
I say first candidate, because while reading more, I came across a forum where a guy claims he had successfully plated stuffs using zinc sprays, which I happen to have in house too!! But anyway, first things first so here's my first test/experiment
Questions to be answered were:
1: Does it actually work?
2: Will my current home solution (power/electrolyte) work
3: Could the result be applied to our plastics
4: Which metal to use. In this first experiment, I will use zinc, simply because I don't have a copper solution yet and while I think I will use copper and then nickel in the end. I doesn't hurt to try and see if it works to then order the necessary to make a CU soup!
Barre in mind that for now, i'm not after a pretty result, as to get shiny results there are some additional work to be done on the surface before plate anything.
Just trying to have some answers first!
So picked some random plastic box, cut it in workable size for a very small container and sprayed 2 thin layers of graphite.
This particular brand spray is already a bad choice and may there will be some successes, I will try another brand as the nozzle of that thing was really not offering enough dosage. The problem being that to spray from a distance gives a nicer layer but the solvant in it evaporates even before the black powder reaches the surface and therefor having a weak adhesion or too much. But may be once the pressure inside will have reduced it will become better. I'll know that after more experiments...
After 2 thin layers were dry, I've placed a sample in bath, crossed fingers and set power on. And yess, the circuit was complete! I have tried place the crocodiles contact on different places, and got same readings. So in that regard, the paint does what it promised!
And then, came the moment to know if it would work, and if zinc could be applied to graphite.
At first nothing! On the metal parts I do, it takes an instant to see the first zinc deposit, however on this, it took quite a while to start.
Top right on pict shows the first deposit next to the negative connection, after more than a minute. It then started to grow. at first quite quickly, then much slower.
After a couple of minutes, I got a deposit on the entire sample, with of course more at the top and much less on the bottom.
A few shots of a video I took to show the shine. Thing is, the acidic method I use to plate, which is harmless, results for the zinc to be dull.
and in this case it was a good thing, because the next test was to see how well the plated metal would resist to some polishing.
Even if of course, this deposit was unevenly distributed, I could already answer a few questions:
1: Does it actually work? Yes it does!
2: Will my current home solution (power/electrolyte) work? Yes!
3: Could the result be applied to our plastics. Yes! And actually that's where I made the poor choice in plastics for my test. The one I used was really flexible and
even if I used some 600 grid paper to rough the surface a bit, it was not sanded enough to obtain a surface that really sticks.
But after using a metallic brush (brass for spark plugs), wool 0,0,0, and aluminium polishing paste, I can say that if the plastic had been better prepared I could have used much more force. In other words, I don't see any problem to polish a good build-up.
On this test, I also added 2 strokes of masking plastic tape (other type of plastic), which were pretty smooth and not sanded and it sticks really well.
Using a brush was a no go, sure it was expected, but needed to try, and tests shows the wires were too sharp and made a start for peeling. (you can see on the monster where the tape and plastic show up)
The peeling on itself was only easy where the base plastic had no or not enough rough surface.
4: Which metal to use. Well, I know now that zinc works, but copper is definitely next on my list! I expect better and faster results with copper
as it's more conductive than zinc and because it's more easy/softer to polish it after a good build-up of the deposit.
I also saw that for a good even spread, I will need to have the negative current set in contact on multiple locations.
To the most important question: could I restore my plastic this way? Well, time will tell, as I need test ways to prepare the surfaces differently, actually use our plastic type and see how copper behaves. But so far, chances are pretty high it would work.
I'll post the next experiment with copper once I have a soup for it...
There was this week a topic on how to restore our dash/shifter chrome plastics...
Because I'm doing some home plating for a while now, with pretty reasonable success on all kinds of parts using different metals, before I pick the way I will go to restore my 71's plastics,
I wanted to see if I could plate plastic in the first place!
Here's comes experiment #1!
Stating the obvious here: there is a problem, plastic is non conductive, which is kind of a bummer for electro plating!
Soo after searching/reading here and there, there are solutions to apply metal deposits on non conductive surfaces. Ranging from rocket science use of plasma and bombardment of particles within complex vacuum chambers.
And there is also a method to remedy the lack of conductivity that is much more in my alley: spray some conductive material onto the object and plate that.
Sooo because I like see stuffs for myself before taking a decision, I've looked into it and ordered my first candidate: A can of sprayable graphite.
the latter being known as a good conductor and this spray used in electronic solutions to build magnetic shields...
I say first candidate, because while reading more, I came across a forum where a guy claims he had successfully plated stuffs using zinc sprays, which I happen to have in house too!! But anyway, first things first so here's my first test/experiment
Questions to be answered were:
1: Does it actually work?
2: Will my current home solution (power/electrolyte) work
3: Could the result be applied to our plastics
4: Which metal to use. In this first experiment, I will use zinc, simply because I don't have a copper solution yet and while I think I will use copper and then nickel in the end. I doesn't hurt to try and see if it works to then order the necessary to make a CU soup!
Barre in mind that for now, i'm not after a pretty result, as to get shiny results there are some additional work to be done on the surface before plate anything.
Just trying to have some answers first!
So picked some random plastic box, cut it in workable size for a very small container and sprayed 2 thin layers of graphite.
This particular brand spray is already a bad choice and may there will be some successes, I will try another brand as the nozzle of that thing was really not offering enough dosage. The problem being that to spray from a distance gives a nicer layer but the solvant in it evaporates even before the black powder reaches the surface and therefor having a weak adhesion or too much. But may be once the pressure inside will have reduced it will become better. I'll know that after more experiments...
After 2 thin layers were dry, I've placed a sample in bath, crossed fingers and set power on. And yess, the circuit was complete! I have tried place the crocodiles contact on different places, and got same readings. So in that regard, the paint does what it promised!
And then, came the moment to know if it would work, and if zinc could be applied to graphite.
At first nothing! On the metal parts I do, it takes an instant to see the first zinc deposit, however on this, it took quite a while to start.
Top right on pict shows the first deposit next to the negative connection, after more than a minute. It then started to grow. at first quite quickly, then much slower.
After a couple of minutes, I got a deposit on the entire sample, with of course more at the top and much less on the bottom.
A few shots of a video I took to show the shine. Thing is, the acidic method I use to plate, which is harmless, results for the zinc to be dull.
and in this case it was a good thing, because the next test was to see how well the plated metal would resist to some polishing.
Even if of course, this deposit was unevenly distributed, I could already answer a few questions:
1: Does it actually work? Yes it does!
2: Will my current home solution (power/electrolyte) work? Yes!
3: Could the result be applied to our plastics. Yes! And actually that's where I made the poor choice in plastics for my test. The one I used was really flexible and
even if I used some 600 grid paper to rough the surface a bit, it was not sanded enough to obtain a surface that really sticks.
But after using a metallic brush (brass for spark plugs), wool 0,0,0, and aluminium polishing paste, I can say that if the plastic had been better prepared I could have used much more force. In other words, I don't see any problem to polish a good build-up.
On this test, I also added 2 strokes of masking plastic tape (other type of plastic), which were pretty smooth and not sanded and it sticks really well.
Using a brush was a no go, sure it was expected, but needed to try, and tests shows the wires were too sharp and made a start for peeling. (you can see on the monster where the tape and plastic show up)
The peeling on itself was only easy where the base plastic had no or not enough rough surface.
4: Which metal to use. Well, I know now that zinc works, but copper is definitely next on my list! I expect better and faster results with copper
as it's more conductive than zinc and because it's more easy/softer to polish it after a good build-up of the deposit.
I also saw that for a good even spread, I will need to have the negative current set in contact on multiple locations.
To the most important question: could I restore my plastic this way? Well, time will tell, as I need test ways to prepare the surfaces differently, actually use our plastic type and see how copper behaves. But so far, chances are pretty high it would work.
I'll post the next experiment with copper once I have a soup for it...
Last edited:
