?s to anyone that's done copper electro plating

[mistermog]

Well, I got a bit nerdy and looking into starting a copper plating experiment here instead of dealing with lube and gas checks.

Basically, per pound of copper sulfate crystals it seems like you can plate about 160 200-grain .35 caliber boolits. Of course that's going by looong out of school math and hoping someone can verify that?

I don't know anyone that's done this in person BUT... if someone feels frisky follow me here.

-copper sulfate = 25.2% copper, so 2 pounds = just over half a pound
-a .950" tall x .358" bullet (cylinder) = 1.06 sq inches x .0015" thick = .0016 cubic inches needed per
-a cubic inch of copper weighs .323 pounds (the interwebs says it does)
-.5 pounds copper = 1.547 cubic inches of coppery goodness

which .5 pounds of copper gozindas .0016 per bullet 966 times.

You can plate 966 200 grain 358s with 2 pound tub of copper sulfate crystals?

that sound about right?

[fcvan]

You are forgetting that you need donor copper from the positive charge to transfer to the grounded boolit. The copper sulphate creates the medium for the donor copper to pass through and collect on the boolit. There are some great YouTube video clips which explain and demonstrate the process. I played with this for a time and got good but not easily achieved results. Here's some pics. Notice in the first pic, the blackened donor copper wire in the bottom of the bath. After several runs, the donor copper was eaten away completely like iron in salt water. I hope this helps.

93654

93655

93656

[Shiloh]

You may have to agitate the cathode part (Boolits) to get an even coat.

Shiloh

[texassako]

I have fiddled around with plating a bit. I used copper acetate made with scrap copper, hydrogen peroxide, and vinegar.

[KYShooter73]

I did it for a while, but could not get even coating. With a better power supply I would have had more control. I never did ramp up above 18 rounds. Did an acetone bath, then sulfuric bath, then saturated cuso4 with some sulfuric for better transfer from the anode to the cathodes. Kept the solution circulating with a fish tank pump.

[mistermog]

Yeah I know you need a little copper, but it pulls most of the copper from the copper sulfate solution if theres enough in it (from what I've read). I just ordered some of that from the E so I should have enough of that, and have some copper plumbing pipe to use as the anode.

I think I'm set with the exception of power supply. I don't know what kind of voltage/current to setup. I know with a 9V battery (and just copper and vinegar) plating 1 bullet it was way too much current and I got all sorts of black crud.

Without an adjustable Dc power supply this is going to be a guessing game. With the 9v and vinegar I got traces of copper but mostly black, but to me it was proof of concept with something I knew wouldn't be great. So I'm still happy with it.

FCVAN, that's a nice outcome there, what kind of power are you using?

[geargnasher]

Er, no. The copper sulfate is merely an electrolyte solution to transfer copper ions from the anode to the cathode. The anode is sacrificial, and is the source of the copper that deposits on the cathode.

The issue is primarily one of distribution, but also of adhesion. The electrons tend to flow in a line of sight path, so for best results you will need to rotate the boolits being plated or surround them with shaped anodes. Unless using a very pure anode and/or sulfuric acid bath and very precisely selected voltage and amperage controls, the anodes may tend to crust over with black stuff as they are depleted and become unwilling to give up further metal ions past a certain point, which may be as soon as one run. The root killer/distilled water solution provides more of a deposition than a plating unless a strike bath is done. There is another trick involving a brief current-reversal that can give better adhesion, but the effectiveness depends much on the alloy being used for the cathode (boolit metal). This is just a layman's perspective from experience copper-plating various things, including leaves, cloth, and some shooting stuff. There is some good information available on the Caswell site, and some books too.

Gear

[fcvan]

For a power supply I got creative. For some tests, I used a wall wart power supply that could be switched from 1.5, 3, 4.5, 6 etc volts. I'm not at the house right now to look at the amps, but it was likely 250-350 ma. Best results were at 1.5v and when there was a lot of boolits hanging. The ones shown are the Lyman 225-415 55 gr boolit. When plating 35 and 45 cal boolits I hung less boolits in order to equalize the surface area to be plated.

I also played with an interesting concept for a power supply. I have two 12v solar panels, one is 2 watt and the other is 5 watt. I hooked the panel to a cigar lighter type power supply that also switched from 1.5 to 12v in 1.5v increments. It was a successful foray into making 'green technology' plated boolits.

I played with plating and tried using as high of a concentration of cu sulphate as would dissolve. Nothing reduced the rate of deterioration of the donor copper. The plating worked well, the boolits shot great, but still required a gas check. I played with making a small barrel electroplating device but was unable to perfect the process. Powder coating boolits ended my electroplating experiments.

[geargnasher]

Variable and controllable amperage is as or more important than voltage level. That's one thing that separates the hobby-level plating from the professionals. I used various wall chargers and even DC batteries to good effect, finding the batteries much more amperage-consistent than the repurposed wall charger transformers such as old cordless phone base power supplies and cell phone chargers I started out playing with.

Gear

[MaryB]

Saw a professional plating setup, they used a revolving metal drum that tumbled the bullets in the solution and also acted as a conductor.

[mistermog]

Gear, yes you are right. as always :)

Hmmm, I figured using the 1.5v of those would work best but don't have one as of yet.

They still require a gas check? Ugh then whats the point of this mess. I wanted to obsolete gas checks. Were you able to shoot full power 223 loads with them plated?

I think this is turning from a fun experiment into a failed idea and fiasco hehe

[bangerjim]

Forget Cu plating. Use powder coating! Faster, better, easier to do. There are 3 methods explored on this site. I prefer the ES gun, but you make the decision based upon your needs, $$, and interest.

The only way to successfully plate small items (like boolits) is rotational plating.....a commercial process. Just hanging them in a tub will not give equal distribution.

And the coat you end up with be PAPER thin......not what you want or see on commercial swaged slugs!

CuSO4 can be easily bought any Lowe's or Home Despot........it is sewer system root killer they sell in the plumbing section!!!!!! I use it for algae control in my swimming pool. And, as stated above, it only forms the saturated electrolyte solution and is not the real source of elemental copper used for plating. By using the chemical version of what you are plating (Cu, Ni, etc) you save the time of building up the necessary ion strength in "barren" electrolytes to achieve plating.

But.........REALLY........check into and consider powder coating!!!!!!!! No lube......no smoke.


bangerjim

[texassako]

Here is the method I used: http://www.instructables.com/id/High-Quality-Copper-Plating/ . The black deposits can be prevented with an aquarium pump bubbler to agitate and a weaker solution. The nickel plating process by the same guy works well after copper plating if you need to plate any gun parts(or anything else).

[mistermog]

Yep I have some copper sulfate on order, it should be here in a few days. I am thinking of a way to make a rotating drum, I talked with a couple guys at work today and have some ideas. :)

Im still going to try this because a) I spent the money and b) now I have to see if I can do a decent job.

So you still need to use gas checks with plating huh... do you need to with powder coating?

[geargnasher]

I got a pound of root killer at the hardware store for something like two bucks, is it outlawed in Florida or something?

Gear

[mistermog]

Nope, but the cheapest I could find it was 14 bucks for 2 pounds. So I found it online for 20 bucks for 5 pounds, I guess I probably should have gone and looked physically instead of going to lowes.com and such. hahah

hmmm, having a problem tonight, a guy wired me up some diodes and resistors to drop the power output from an adapter I had down to 1.5 volts, and we measured it across a power supply to show it can handle up near an amp without a problem but so far its been an hour and nothings plated squat...

battery turned one black, the ac adapter stepped down to 1.5v isn't doing dick. :( grrr, I hate it when things don't just work like they are supposed to.

[geargnasher]

Triple the voltage. What are you using for an anode?

Gear

[mistermog]

hmm really? ive heard everywhere 1.5 was best?

[geargnasher]

What do you think about what you've heard now that you've tried it?

Gear

[mistermog]

It means I think I screwed up somewhere... :) I have no idea the amps going to the system... I took off the little tool and it goes up to about 8.4 volts and turns black immediately.

I knew power was going to be the main point of this experiment... im not giving up, just getting slightly frustrated

[bangerjim]

Go to HarborFreight and get their cheapest multimeter. It will measure volts, ma, and amps. That way you will sort of know what is going on. I have about 10 of them.....one free with each 25% coupon!!!!!!!!! Every week I get at lease 3 coupons in the mail and in the Sunday paper.

I would think ~6V would be more like what you would need. Plating with a flashlight battery might work............over a period of DAYS! Higher amperage is what you need. If voltage is too high, it will creat the "blackies" right away......burning. There is a balance between V & A that will get you a relative fast coat without burning.

But you gotta know what you are pumping thru there!

Don't know what is going on with your buddy and the resistors/diodes! But you get a 0.7v drop thru a silicon rectifier diode in a DC circuit. Putting them in series will give you drops in that multiple. The resistors will limit current AND drop the voltage too, but not linear like the diodes. You need to use Ohm's law to calculate that.......... I=E/R.

banger

[mistermog]

hi banger, yes that's exactly what we did. (He's a 40 year career EE... so, he knew what he was doing...) We have 2 0.7 diodes in series and also have a pretty 20w 10ohm resistor to help burn off the unwanted energy.

93731

We hooked it up to a power supply at work and setup to 6v .5 amp on the supply, and simulating a .5amp load on the circuit brings it down to 1.3v. I plug it all up at home and Im getting 1.41v, but I cant measure the amps.

I have 3 of those harbor freight freebies, none of them seem to work for ****! one I cant get any numbers or anything to appear on any setting! :)

I think the problem is with this power supply, it was sitting in one of my junk drawers for who knows how long. The label says 6v 300mA but when I measure the voltage after cutting off the connector it was 10.1v. When I hook up the plating anode and cathode WITHOUT the resistor setup, just the copper, and bullet in a vinegar bath, it comes out to 8.4v.

All kinds of screwy stuff here with that thing.

[MaryB]

Go to one of t hese http://www.amazon.com/Pyramid-PS3KX-3-Amp-12-Volt-Supply/dp/B0002JTD2K/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1389940255&sr=8-3&keywords=12+volt+power+supply or an even better model with adjustable voltage and current.

[mistermog]

Yes mary Im sure that would make life easier but right now I'm trying the low budget approach hehe. :) Im not sure what volts/amps to use, so I don't know I cant do it yet.

(My trials were with pure vinegar, not the copper sulfate solution. I want to wait until that comes in to see if the low volt approach works better)

[Old School Big Bore]

Anyone tried a slot car / electric train transformer? I'm scrounging discarded coffee makers to start collecting the stuff to try plating. I was thinking of putting 1/2" hardware cloth on the bottom of the tank and setting the boolits in the squares to get them surrounded by anode, then using a weighted, flat metal plate set on their meplats, above the solution, for the other conductor (soft points!). Forgot all about the anode having to be sacrificial so BLOOEY goes that idea. Maybe routing out a 1/2" square grid into a Delrin cutting board and stringing 8 or 10 ga copper anode wire in the grooves? Or drilling stitching-holes instead of grooves to make the anode wire stand proud of the board? I have an old Thumbler's Tumbler I could use to tumble the bullets, but how do you get the current inside, drill the drum for a rotating connector? The more I wonder about plating, the more my head hurts. I'll be taking a nap now...

[mistermog]

Yeah, and apparently the benefit is slim, you still need gas checks and I plan to lube anyway... so... now its just a matter of pride :)

[Oreo]

How about stacking the boolits vertically inside a copper pipe and circulate the electrolyte through.

Just a thought. I'm never gonna try this. I'm ready to delve into es powder coating.