Restoring - General discussions that span across many different groups of years and models > Processes, Products & Techniques

Anyone tried doing there own plating?

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sparky65:
I see there are some DIY plating kits out there.  I am not too organized so I usually refinish parts as I go to put them on.  That makes collecting a bunch of parts with the same finish to take to some one to plate a very difficult task.  There is no way I could get them all done first shot I will always find one or two I forgot.  Also for some finishes I may not even have enough parts to begin with.  Most of my bolts are already coming from AMK so I was thinking one of these kits may be the way to go.  Just not sure how difficult it is to get good results. 

bryancobb:
Man!   You are on my wavelength!

I'm a sciencey kind of guy anyway and it just doesn't look like rocket science.

Sunlitgold68:
You might want to consider sending your fasteners to a plating business. I think some people do their own phosphate and they say it is fairly easy, but you'll have zinc, zinc dichromate, cadmium, and phosphate and possibly other finishes. The hard part is keeping it all straight and organizing after you get it all back!

CharlesTurner:
I've tried the "copy-cad" home-plating systems and was never able to achieve consistent results.  I find it much easier to prepare the parts for plating and have a local shop do them.  Of course, as mentioned, phosphate is very easy, so I choose to do that myself.

bryancobb:
Yes Charles,
About sorting out the mess after it gets back from the platers...
... I think it was your pics I saw where bin after bin of beautiful hardware was all mixed together for someone to sort!
I said to myself... "Somebody has a CHORE ahead!"
BC

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