Some Plating experiments

[gimling]

here is one of my new things to do while I wait on various reloading stuff in my spare time practicing on plating. what do you think?

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[williamwaco]

I have tried that with ZERO success.

How did you do it?


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[gimling]

with low DC Voltage and Low amperage, the plating process doesn't take long, but I do need to etch the lead. It plates well but does not adhere really well to the bullet due to it being so smooth. I Have tested the BHN and out of the same batch the lead cast bullet on the left is cold cast at 11 BHN the plated measured out at 22BHN.

[TES]

Well show me 5000 of these by tomorrow! Dang you must have polished that guy for at least for 30 seconds! Pretty!

[Idz]

How thick is the plating? Thin copper (less than 0.001) is easy make look good but when you try for .005 it gets ugly without using special techniques. Will you give us more info like voltage, current, plating bath, temperature, and time.

thanks

[bangerjim]

There are several Youtube videos I have watches on boolit plating. Pretty thin, but so are the FMJ's we buy. Check them out.

gimling........please post your technique! Would be appreciated.

Now we can powder coat, electro plate, epoxy, and heaven knows what else to our cast lead buddies.

bangerjim

[KYShooter73]

I tried quite a bit, and was able to get enough material on, but my thickness was squirrelly and they were super rough and ugly.

[dbosman]

A single D cell battery will plate thin layers of copper onto bollits.

[gimling]

I will post specifics later on tonight or tomorrow with pictures, but as far as my mix atm I am just using zep root kill in distilled water. I warmed the water in microwave (dissolves the crystals faster). I didn't go with 12Volt power supply, I dug around in my junk box and pulled out an old school nokia cell phone charger 6 Volt 200miliamps. I have been varying times in the wash, so I have many different thickness varying from .001 to .040. even at the .040 thickness its not that bad I am goin out right now to do a few more experiments will post my results.

most that are using 12volt 1.5 amp it is plating WAY to fast, using lower voltage and amperage I am getting smoother more even coverage without using a chemical reducer. Also I am working on a electroless bath solution. im a bit rusty on my chemistry but should have some info on that in the near future.

[gimling]

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My Bath setup.

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premeasurement

[OpenNRG]

Has anyone looked at the copper plating from Caswell Plating? They have kits and chemicals. I just bought their copper / nickle kit to do my Glock 19 slide. Don't let anybody tell you Glocks don't rust. My carry gun rusted where the back of the slide rides on my skin. Will post a How To when I get to it.

http://www.caswellplating.com/electroplating-anodizing/copper-plating-kits.html?dir=asc&limit=all&order=price

[gimling]

Has anyone looked at the copper plating from Caswell Plating? They have kits and chemicals. I just bought their copper / nickle kit to do my Glock 19 slide. Don't let anybody tell you Glocks don't rust. My carry gun rusted where the back of the slide rides on my skin. Will post a How To when I get to it.

http://www.caswellplating.com/electroplating-anodizing/copper-plating-kits.html?dir=asc&limit=all&order=price

I guess you could but im doing the same thing with the same materials bought from local hardware store, I think I have $15 total into this. The copper brightner might be something too look into.

[gimling]

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original size

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35 min in the bath

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quick polish final measurement

[KYShooter73]

Same process I used, but made my solution acidic with sulfuric, plus gave the lead a soak in sulfuric after the acetone. My problems came after ramped up my jig to do 40 at a time.

[fcvan]

I had fun trying to plate 225-415 boolits last year. I had my best results using a 5w 12v solar panel withe a variable cigarette lighter type voltage inverter to 3v. It was fun, tedious, but it worked. They shot ok from my My 14 but not as well as powder coating.

With a Harbor Freight PC gun and a small toaster oven I can coat hundreds of boolits per hour. The only way to match that kind of output with EP would be to barrel electroplating. The cost of the parts and the donor copper made me lose interest. It was fun and my friends thought it was cool when I showed them the purty boolits.

[gimling]

Same process I used, but made my solution acidic with sulfuric, plus gave the lead a soak in sulfuric after the acetone. My problems came after ramped up my jig to do 40 at a time.

What kind of Problems?

[KYShooter73]

What kind of Problems?

The bullets closer to the anode plated faster, plus I would get streaks of thicker copper and also had places almost like salt grains (made of copper) grow on the bullets. I could have probably designed my anodes better and got a variable power source and deeper tank, but I went down the powder coat road instead.