Need copper plating help

[wallenba]

I'm trying to teach myself copper plating of cast boolits. I gleaned some info on the youtube video posted by the ATG forum group (Howdy Tommy!). I made a small proof of concept tank out of a plastic storage tub and tried plating a few. I cleaned them with acetone prior, but they are getting a buildup of loose black material. I used distilled water so it's not minerals. I took them out periodically and cleaned them off and returned them to the Zep solution. Is this just a phase in the plating? And should I just leave them alone?
I manage to finally get a couple that look satisfactory. In the pic one is sized and checked, and the plating stayed on ok.

The cast boolit unfriendly range near me just put in an indoor fifty yard rifle range, so I've got some incentive to get this right.

[williamwaco]

I tried it too. Got the same result. I found a layer of copper under that black crud. I think it was about one atom thick. I decided to scrap the project.



,

[Oreo]

I wish i could remember my source but i can't... i do remember reading that using common chemicals all you'd get was a thin surface-wash of copper. To build up a real copper plating or even thicker, jacket, you'd need industrial / lab grade chemicals that were not very pleasant to work with.

[303Guy]

You do need arsenic and cyanide salts in that solution. (The stuff is only harmful if you breath in the vapours or get it on your skin[smilie=1:). But's it's the only way to copper plate lead so it sticks. However, you can get a heavy enough build up on top of that black layer that could possibly survive the bore. Not sure what would happen if they were fired without lube. Probably get copper fouling. It does sort of defeat the copper plating effort though. Still, all things should be tried and tested just to see what happens. I have tried it but not on the range. It was so much effort to get one nicely coated boolit so I never fired it. I still have it somewhere.

[MikeS]

Just out of curiosity, when you say cast unfriendly, do you mean lead unfriendly? If so, then another thing to try is using a polymer paint to coat the boolits. There's another thread somewhere, I think in the lube forum about coatings on boolits. I know in Australia where they're lead unfriendly they sell boolits with a polymer coating. Those coatings are basically used as the boolit lube as well, and so would probably be less smoky than traditional boolit lube would be. Also, you could try using Rooster Jacket with some pigment added. I tried adding food coloring to RJ, but that didn't work out too well, I think a different pigment thats more opaque would probably work better.

Another option although expensive would be to cast from something other than lead. Some folks are trying to cast with zinc, but I think an alloy of tin with some zinc in it might be a better choice, or possibly even straight tin.

Along the lines of your original experiments, I wonder if zinc plating might work better than copper plating? I know that if they can be zinc plated, that would again wouldn't need to use any traditional lube.

[lavenatti]

They need to be cleaned better. I've used sulfuric acid to 'pickle' and clean them before plating. They turn a dull grey color after a few minutes.

The plating solution I used was copper sulfate, sodium chloride(a pinch) a few drops of tarn-x and a few drops of glycol based anti-freeze. Also, some gauze wrapped around your copper electrode will help.

I had pretty good results, It plated on and stuck well as long as I did the pickling step before plating. I've read a little citric acid helps them come out shinier. The tarn-x and the glycol help to copper to plate evenly.

[wallenba]

MikeS, yes I mean that they ban lead bullets and don't differentiate hard cast from them. The zinc option is out, I'm willing to pursue this only so far. I did see the polymer coating article once, but I clean forgot about it. I'll have to find it.

Lavenatti, what benefit is derived from the gauze wrap? Is copper migrating off the anode? I'm willing to try that and the acid. Is battery acid good enough, or do I need a lab grade of sulphuric acid? Is the salt, plain table salt, or do I need something iodine free? My source of copper is the sulphate in Zep root kill. If I keep on periodically removing the crud, it will eventually begin to plate and adhere. But that is way too much work to put into the job for what I get out of it.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Wallenba: Are you tumbling the boolits while you are plating them. If you don't you will get buildup like you are experiencing. Also the plating will not be even. The tumbling action keeps the boolits clean as they are being plated and insures that the plating goes on evenly.

The outfits selling plated boolits right now are doing "tumble plating" which is the accepted method of plating bulk parts which cannot be racked efficiently. IE pins and small parts. They are depositing .008 per surface, which is ALOT!. IE increasing the size of the boolit by .016 in Dia,. then they are sized, and since the blanks are about .014-.015 undersized there is little actual sizing going on, which yeilds a better loooking product..

It is hard for for me to see a home style operation being able to pay for itself, due to the complexity of the equipment needed to do ithis process right.

I use lots of these types of boolits in my .45 ACP G21 and my .40S&W G35 and they work very well. I buy them at the gun show locally and the brand name is Xtreme. good product. there is also Berrry's and Rainier that I know of probably more out there.

I would go to a plating shop that actually does tumble plating and see what they are doing and ask them that knows, exactly what they are doing.

I talked to 3 different outfits who make plated boolits at the SHOT Show last year and got samples and everything. That's how I know as much as I know about the process for boolits. I didn't even ask about the chemistry as I'm not going to do it, but I'm sure the info is readily available from any plating shop. Certainly not a protected secret.

The copper tumble plating process is used alot in masking pins which are case hardended in only certain areas. The copper prevents carbon intrusion inot the base material and the places that are open get cased.

I have had it done many times to parts I was making in my machine shop. I made Cam Roller pivot pins for Indian motorcycles a few years ago and they had to have a section left soft so it could be riveted into place into the rocker arm. The pins were strait with a step turned on them. They were then plated.002 on a side. Then rough ground the OD of the pin exposing the part we wanted hard, and then the pins were reground to finished dia after heat treat.

This is one of the industrial applications for this process.

Hope this helps your understanding of the process.

Randy

[wallenba]

Randy, no I can't afford a tumbling outfit. I am aware vaguely how they work, but this is just a small setup for my own use. Others are using this method and are getting fair results. A two part video is on youtube, and he's doing OK. There's no book on it though. Most of the boolits I want to plate are for my milsurps that all need to be specially sized for their 'off' bores. I sometimes use the Rainier lead safe bullets too. I tried adding citric acid and a surfactant today. The solution was much clearer, but same results. I'm missing some basic fundamental knowledge. I dropped my three amp power supply to 1 and a half with a twelve volt light bulb. Maybe I need to drop it more.

[wallenba]

I'm back again. I spent some time searching for the polymer coated bullets. Found some European websites, none showed any rifle bullets. I think if I pursue this further it will be with this kit I just found. http://www.caswellplating.com/kits/flashcopper.html They have a pre plating pickle solution for lead and pewter. You do need to use copper anode$ though.

[leftiye]

You have to pickle the lead before plating or you get that black oxide. Texas Plating Supply- they have a guide book, and all the equipment, and chemicals you need, as well as all the info and advise too.

Usta be a member here named Gently. He did a few threads on plating. He was the onr who turned me on to TPS.

[wallenba]

Thanks Leftiye for the leads. I'll search them both tomorrow. I thought it might be an oxidation problem. I reversed the polarity and yep, it got blown right off the bullet. Dissimilar metal corrosion.

[MikeS]

Randy:

The plated portion of the pins didn't get hard? When I was in the leather machinery business years ago we had a similar situation. The sewing machine that we manufactured had several cams in it, and the cam rollers had a pin with a section that was turned down on the end, and a steel washer was put over the smaller section, then peened in place. I can't recall if we hardened the pins or not, I'm thinking we didn't, as the roller was hardened, and 2 hardened parts running against each other wouldn't work out too well. The machine ran at fairly low speed, it only sewed 250 stitches per minute (but did that in 1" thick leather!). Many of the parts for the machine were made from drop forgings, and when we lost the ability to have them made anymore I had to find a new method of making them, and ended up going with investment castings (precision lost wax), it's amazing what can be done with those castings! We took one part that had over 250 machining operations on the drop forging, and with the investment casting we only had 20 or so operations! (and a better part) This was over 20 years ago, I wonder if there have been even more advancements in those 20 years?

Sorry for the off topic post, just got me thinking of my machine shop I setup (one part, the bobbin case, had been made in Japan since 1950, but I was able to get investment castings made, and equip a small machine shop, and machine 100 of the 1000 castings, all for less money than the Japanese wanted to make the same 100 parts!) For any leather workers out there, the machine I'm talking about is the Campbell Harness Stitcher.

[303Guy]

Plates onto Lead and Pewter with the addition of Pickle #4
.... with covering and throwing powers greater than cyanide copper.Sounds good! When I tried copper plating a number of years ago it was cyanide or bust, to the best of what I could find in the library. Definitely a pickle thrown in there!

[Frank46]

There is a company in germany that sells plated bullets in both rifle and pistol calibers. Handler & Naterman or something similar. I'm thinking that this process is similar to the electrolsis process whereby one removes rust. But in this case you are using the copper anode as a sacrifical anode to plate the bullets. Ok if I got that right, maybe you need to increase the voltage instead of decreasing it. Just a thought. Frank

[xfoxofshogo]

use a hi grade copper will help copper pipe is hard and is not hi grade and the same for copper wire

see if you have some one that dose plating near buy some times thay will sell you copper for doing this and mabe can help you build a good set up

[MikeS]

If you can find a plater near you, perhaps they could do the plating for you if their prices are good. You could find out how thick they can make the plating, then size the lead core so that with the plating the boolits would be slightly oversize, then when you get them back from the plater you could size them again to the proper size. If they can do a fairly thick coating, you might want to size the boolits smaller than you would normally make lead. As an example, 45 cal pistol boolits cast from lead are usually sized to .452, but jacketed bullets are sized to .451 & in this example I would think you would want to size the finished boolit to .451

[xfoxofshogo]

i for got some thing i found out long time a go make shear what you are plating is on the bottom and the copper is hanging above it this realy helps

o and rot off in to your tank some copper first be for tiring to plate

[DukeInFlorida]

I spent bunch of time with a similar experiment a couple of years ago. While I was able to easily put copper on other metals (steel, nickle, zinc), putting copper on lead bullets was an exercise in futility.

I quickly realized that there were a few factors I could not overcome:

Cleaning the lead properly.
At the plating facility, they go immediately from one processing tank to another. Cleaning>neutralizing>plating>rinsing>cleaning, etc.
Bullets are tumbled, so that it's more than a one up process. They do hundreds/thousands in a tumbling basket
I don't have the right chemicals. Sure, I was using copper sulfate (Zep brand root killer). Sure I had a proper anode and cathode, and controllable electrical source. But the factory chemicals, including the cleaning agents are not available for the home plater. Nor would I want them in my home.
With less effort, I can create perfect castings, with perfect lube, and perfectly sized so that I get the exact same performance as a plated bullet
With less effort, I can also create swaged bullets which are BETTER than plated bullets. There's a bit more cost involved with the tooling, but the results mirror factory jacketed bullets.
Visit the swaging area if you haven't already, and see some amazing work involving the use of brass cases as the jackets for various sized bullets.
Here's the link for the swaging section: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/forumdisplay.php?f=41
The time I was wasting trying to make the platin work could have been better used for casting or swaging, and most importantly: SHOOTING.

[para45lda]

Not trying to be a smart butt...

Would this work for your application? http://www.rustoleum.com/CBGProduct.asp?pid=114. If you are just trying to get on the range. Not sure how it would treat your barrel though.

Wes

[wallenba]

Not trying to be a smart butt...

Would this work for your application? http://www.rustoleum.com/CBGProduct.asp?pid=114. If you are just trying to get on the range. Not sure how it would treat your barrel though.

Wes

Good idea Wes...but if they got wise I'd be banned for life for sure. The guys who own this outfit are reported to be all ex and current P.O.'s.:wink:

[wallenba]

There is a company in germany that sells plated bullets in both rifle and pistol calibers. Handler & Naterman or something similar. I'm thinking that this process is similar to the electrolsis process whereby one removes rust. But in this case you are using the copper anode as a sacrifical anode to plate the bullets. Ok if I got that right, maybe you need to increase the voltage instead of decreasing it. Just a thought. Frank

In the video process I'm using ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KM_hr5eCNo ) the copper is from the copper sulphate solution made from disolving Zep into warm water. I'm using small gage copper tubing for it's maleability and conductivity. Some transfer may be happening too though.

[unfy]

'lo!

Over the past few weeks I've also been going the Zepp root killer route. Am actively posting my findings and other infos local gun forum etc.

I thought I'd add to this discussion though.

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First up my rig at the moment:

http://www.unfy.org/plating/100bath.jpg

2 gallons of water, 3 cups of Zepp, 1 quart of white vinegar, 1/4 inch copper tubing for the cathode scafolding, 13v radio shack power supply.

Since I couldn't find any appropriate flashing, I was using the 1/4" copper tubing hammered flat to act as an anode (and coiled around bottom of the tank).

I notched the scaffolding cathode with a pipe cutter to make placement of the bullet hangers easier.

Lastly, I am using an aquarium air pump with tubing to act as an agitator for the solution (required for long plating times and thicker coats).

Bullet hangers are some Cat3 soild core wire (24awg) stripped and cut to length.

So far, success has been:

* rough up the surface of the lead bullet (brush or steel wool)
* acetone dip for 5-10min
* distilled water rinse
* plating process
* distilled water rinse and immediate dry

I've had great success also using a single D or C cell battery as a power source. A 3.3v 340ma wall wart did not work (produced too much hydrogen / burned copper).

Doing this process with a battery and an 8-12 hour test plate of a single bullet from a battery, a .40s&w went to .430 inches and some 20 grams of copper heavier. The plate quality was excellent. This did well as a proof of concept.

Mass plating has done well, too.

Pitfalls I've hit so far:

* If you don't properly rough up the surface of the bullet, your plating quality will be completely useless.

* Salty lemon juice bath as a pickling / etchant is no good. Stronger acids are probably required (have some 31% HCl, but am hoping to not open it).

* A per-bullet thin stranded copper hanger wire is annoying as all hell when attempting to work with them in quantity (imagine a box of xmas ornaments with their hangers still attached and shaken up).

* You *really* want to agitate your copper sulfate solution to get better plating. The aquarium pumps do well.

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Plans for the future:

* cast bullet -> quench in distilled water -> acetone bath -> rinse -> plating
** this is an attempt to remove the physical abrasion / etching of the bullet

* build a better hanger system (it takes hour(s) to deal with 100 little hangers)
** i am avoiding the rotating basket idea for now
** i do have a plan for a possibly better and easier hanger system... success will be mentioned later

* if i have to, a sulfuric acid or hcl acid etch can be done (or possibly phosphoric acid... all of these can be found at hardware stores). i realy don't want to though.

* last ditch effort: rotating basket idea

[unfy]

I guess I could use some help / ideas as well.

My current basket based setup is pictured below. I rotate the basket 180 degrees every 1-5 minutes by hand (since this is prototyping and all). Ok, not quite 'current' -- i've gone about making the wire cathode stuff much cleaner and only using the 14awg wire (noticed 'burning' along the thinner stuff). But the setup is the exact same:

http://unfy.org/plating/basket.jpg

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With 2 hours of plating 40 bullets on a battery, the results aren't terribly great. A different batch at 5 hours, they're a bit better.

An example of the 5 hour bullets:

http://unfy.org/plating/basket5hr.jpg

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Took both batches of bullets, hit them with fine steel wool & acetone... and then plated them for another 2.5 hours. In general, the plate coating appears to improve, but... it's still not up the snuff.

I'll take the cross hatch grip area of a xacto knife and just do a single rub against the bullets. These bulk-bullets tend to fail the test (ie: scratches down to lead). Some don't fail and just show shiny copper, but most fail this simple test.

In general, after the longer coating times, all of the flat areas of the bullets tend to be okay, but the corners / edges usually show signs of not plating correctly (undoubtedly due to being tossed around the basket).

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I am generally willing to be able to handle some cosmetic blemishes on the bullets... but... the plate quality just leaves so much lacking.

Single bullets from a wire hanger I can get to coat real thick or real decently (note: this was .401 taken to .430):

http://unfy.org/plating/sep4.jpg

But... this ... lack of decent mass plating is starting to get irksome.

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17.8 amp hours per square foot to deposit 1 thousandth


100 .401 bullets is about ~ 1/2 a square foot surface area. So .... It'd take 9 amp/hr to get .001 of an inch.

A C or D cell battery can put out 5 amp/hr easily... but I believe when I've measured such things while plating, it only shows 500ma or so. So... we're talking a day or two of plating maybe ?

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Next week I'll probably pick up some more experimental supplies. Aquarium water heater... and... something to make a configurable DC power source or something. Startin to get *real* frustrated with this heh.