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  #41  
Old 05-23-2017, 07:42 PM
PurelyGTO68 PurelyGTO68 is offline
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Originally Posted by dataway View Post
...

Typically you are going to be in the area of 1.5-3v with amps varied based on the square inches being plated. ....
Same here. I normally adjust my power supply so it's putting out about 1.5-2 amps. My power supply has two settings 0-8 volts and 8-16 volts. I've never had to use the higher setting for any of the plating work.

You could even use a AA battery if you want to play around with a small item. It might take a little longer but it works.

  #42  
Old 05-30-2017, 07:35 PM
PurelyGTO68 PurelyGTO68 is offline
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Default Black Phosphate etching

I cleaned and refinished some black phosphate hardware recently so I thought I would post some pics in case anyone was curious.

I believe I posted a link to the process earlier in this thread but here it is again just in case.
http://www.southsandia.com/forum/web...e_etching.html

Really super simple. For nuts, bolt, washers etc....I simply put them to a bench grinder with a wire wheel and clean off any rust that may have formed. If the hardware is oily or greasy, then I put the parts in a tumbler with some degreaser and that usually cleans them up pretty good.

In this case, I was working on the rear wheel cylinders. These bolts have a silver cad type finish on 50's and early 60's Chevrolet models but the bolts from my '68 GTO were black oxide finish so I went with that instead. These were wire wheeled on the bench grinder then brushed lightly with a stainless steel brush to clean off any left over residue and then dropped in a small container of Klean-Strip Phosphoric Prep and Etch from Home Depot.

I then left the container in the sun to 'cook' for about half an hour but I lost track of time so it could have been a bit longer. I then removed the bolts and rinsed them very well. I rinsed my parts in a wire basket with a nozzle on the garden hose to make sure I get all the etching chemical rinsed away. Then straight into a quick bath of denatured alcohol and then dry the parts with pressurized air. Then I put them in a small sandwich bag and squirt some WD-40 in there. I leave them in the bag until needed. They can stay in that bag for days, weeks or months until needed.

When I am ready to use the parts, I just wipe off the excess oil and install them as normal. No worry about scratching them with the tools since it's not paint. The parts usually come out pretty nice.

I am not sure why the factory used a variety of different finishes for hardware (silver cad, dichromate conversion, black phosphate etc). I wonder if the black phosphate treatment was used for higher strength hardware or parts where the correct torque spec was more critical. The side benefit of "oil and phosphate" process is the fastener is lightly oiled when put in use so the torque specs might be more accurate. Just a theory of mine.....not sure if it carries any weight or not....

At any rate, here is a pic. One of these little bolts is missing it's lock washer.....broke off during the wire wheel process. I found another lock washer but it's not the same size as the original. This minor detail will bug me until no end so I'll end up searching my hardware stock until I find another one of these with the correct washer and head markings. I am sure that nobody else would ever notice the different washer but these types of things still eat at me anyway. Some sort of disease I guess....
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  #43  
Old 05-30-2017, 10:41 PM
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You know you did it right when they come out that black. I am sometimes remiss with my cleaning and I always pay for it by have some gray areas and have to redo them.

  #44  
Old 05-30-2017, 10:44 PM
PurelyGTO68 PurelyGTO68 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dataway View Post
You know you did it right when they come out that black. I am sometimes remiss with my cleaning and I always pay for it by have some gray areas and have to redo them.
Been there myself. I have learned it is less expensive to clean the part well the first time (both in time and money).

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  #45  
Old 01-26-2018, 06:03 AM
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Latest Zinc plating work.

Some before after pics of the wire looms for my 68 GTO.

Tore, scape, burn off original plastic coating.
Power brushed the dirt/scale/rust off.
Bend, flatten back to original shape if needed.
Then dipped in pure muriatic acid (be careful) for five minutes or so to burn off the original zinc plating and rust.
Rinsed in clean water
Electro plated with Zinc (about 2.7 volts, holding by hand for five minutes or so)
Rinsed in clean water
Brushed with a fine brass wire brush.
Dipped in black "Plasti-Dip" (pretty much same process as originals)
Dip is still a bit thick in the photos because it's still drying.

Rather than buying new re-pops, restore the originals ... yes takes time, but stuff like this is how I can restore my car for a LOT less than the "gentleman" restores pay. And I end up with a more original vehicle.
As mentioned in prior pages of this thread, countless nuts, bolts, washers, brackets, straps, etc. than can be done this way. If it's got a zinc plated part (galvanized) and you can take it apart, you can plate it.
Everything doesn't always turn out this nice, but much of it does, and what doesn't has that genuine two year old original part look.

PS. Thanks to forum member Scott Thelander for selling me an original set to start with.



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Last edited by dataway; 01-26-2018 at 06:08 AM.
  #46  
Old 01-26-2018, 01:07 PM
PurelyGTO68 PurelyGTO68 is offline
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Nice. I wish I had my original wire looks to reconditioned. I purchased reproduction pieces but would have preferred to reconditioned originals when possible. Scott is my go to guy for these sorts of items....I wish I would have checked with him first.



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  #47  
Old 01-26-2018, 02:33 PM
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Yep, Scott has provided a ton of this kind of thing for me. Always labeled, shipped promptly and reasonably priced.

My guess is the re-pops for an item like this are probably pretty good. Not a very complex part, the ones I saw were pretty pricey though.

I'm looking forward to trying things like the wiper motor case, idle solenoid case, things like that. Usually the problem is getting them apart without losing or screwing up anything.

Of course there are also services from what I've heard that will batch zinc plate a bunch of stuff for reasonable cost. Would like to try that sometime too.

  #48  
Old 02-28-2018, 07:37 AM
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dataway when you rinse with alcohol following dipping/submerging the parts in muriatic acid do you go directly to the alcohol or rinse in water first? If you've already stated this somewhere in this thread I missed it. Then following the alcohol do you string the part up and immediately plate it? If not how do you keep it from rusting? I am in a very humid climate down here and have prepped many batches of steel components with muriatic before taking them to the cad plater but spray wd-40 on everything immediately after rinsing the muriatic off with water, to keep everything from flash rusting. The plater cleans the wd-40 off before putting the items through the plating process.

  #49  
Old 02-28-2018, 02:00 PM
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I don't even use alcohol after the muriatic acid ... take it right out of the acid, immediately dip/swish around in water, immediately plate. Since the Muriatic acid is water soluble I don't really see the need. Although I do have the alcohol on hand ... might try it the next time. But the parts seem to plate fine without that step.

I've gone from preparing batches, to just doing single parts at a time. Doing batches was taking up too much room, was getting hard to organize and keep track of the parts. Now I just plate parts for whatever I happen to be working on at the time. I keep a small batch of plating solution sealed up and ready, with a work lamp pointed at it 24/7 to keep it close to the proper temp.

I have discovered that in general it's hard to mess up zinc plating, you'd have to TRY to mess it up. Just about any formula works, just about any voltage/amps (except too much). Probably the biggest factor is arrangement of the zincs around the parts.

  #50  
Old 02-28-2018, 03:04 PM
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Thank you. I'm going to try doing zinc I've been having trouble with the cad plated items I get back forming black spots on them after time and some within a week. I had this happen every now and then but within the past couple of years it has become more and more frequent and the research I've done says it is because my plater's tanks are contaminated with copper, lead, or something? His main business is plating gigantic parts that have to do with offshore drilling mostly so I can't put any pressure on him.

FYI I've never used alcohol when pickling the components I'm going to have plated I asked only because I saw it mentioned in this thread. I've always soaked in muriatic for 15 minutes, then swish around in tap water with a box of baking soda mixed in, then swish around in a second pan of tap water only, and then spray with wd-40 and bag. Before the muriatic I get everything clean by chasing the threads, scraping off any caked on stuff, and then stirring a batch in boiling 50/50 water and something like Crud Cutter, Simple Green, or some such, so it is clean of everything but rust before it goes into the tub of muriatic.

Great thread here.

  #51  
Old 02-28-2018, 04:34 PM
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I think you will be happy with your results. Will take a small amount of fiddling with the position of anodes but it's pretty full proof. And remember, you can always plate them as many times as need be.

Things I am careful about are changing the rinse water often so it doesn't get too acidic from the muriatic acid and using distilled water for plating formula.

I have numerous parts lying around that I plated more than a year ago that still look like the day I plated them.

I've found a HUGE range of times for plating. Some formulas like 15 minutes or so at a lowish amp/sq-inch, the formula I am using now .... just takes two or three minutes at a higher amps/sq-inch.

So I've been holding them by hand lately rather than hanging them, allows me to move them around a bit to help get 100% coverage. I've been adjusting volts/amps by eye for the most part. Pronounced bubbling or shadowing ... too much power, but I like to see some very small bubbling. Parts developing dark areas before your eyes .... too much power.

Currently with the formula I am using it ends up around 2.7 volts or so, and around 300 mil-amps per sq inch. But some formulas like around 1.5 volts and 100-150 miliamps per sq. inch.

If I'm not happy with some plating ... either I drop it back in the acid and burn off the zinc, which takes about fifteen seconds, or I just wire brush it to a slight sheen and plate it again.

Before long I will be doing the breather tube from valve cover to air cleaner, looking forward to seeing how that comes out.

  #52  
Old 03-01-2018, 01:36 AM
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Here is a pic of the breather tube I just did. It started as about a 6 out of 10 part. Some surface rust, blackened original zinc plating, corrosion etc.

I did a really off the cuff job to see if it would work. My zinc bath was all cloudy and messed up from sitting for a couple of months under the heat lamp to keep it about 80 degrees. And it was too small to completely submerse the part ... so I had to do it one end at a time. Came out pretty nice. I didn't leave it in the acid long enough so I had some tiny bit of residual rust that I had to wire brush off (brass brush) in the middle of plating. Had a few areas that must have been contaminated so it didn't take well the first plate ... pulled it, cleaned it up some more, plated again.

My object was to see just how lazy and incorrect I could be and still get a decent plate. Seems like the zinc molecules basically want to do the right thing no matter what. With the bath in bad condition it seemed to want a voltage around 1.4vdc .... typically the better the bath solution, the more volts/amps you can use because the bath transfers the zinc more efficiently. With a not so good bath it wants to go slower and too much power will form the large zinc crystals witch cause the "shadowing" and a rougher finish.

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  #53  
Old 03-01-2018, 09:10 AM
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Have you ever blackened items after zinc plating, with either a chromate or with something like Caswell's a360 blackener?

  #54  
Old 03-01-2018, 01:15 PM
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Not so far ... but I would like to try. I've done some "Parkerizing" but that does not protect nearly as well as blackened Zinc.

I've also done some "gold" chromating over Zinc with sodium dichromate, works good sometimes, not so good other times, yet to figure it out. Did some clear chromate over Zinc using an Eastwood product (I think, could have been Caswell) which worked ok.

Every now and then you get lucky and a gold/yellow dichromate dip over zinc will turn out with that perfect iridescent finish, but mostly I end up with a yellow/gold tone similar to a factory carb that has sat for a few years.

Problem with the Sodium dichromate (Hex-a-whatever) is it's very toxic, you don't want to get it on you or inhale it or anything. And it's not something you want to dump on the lawn out back. Manufacturers have moved to a Non-Hex dichromate that is not as toxic.

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Old 03-01-2018, 03:23 PM
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Data, missed this post, excellent results. You nailed it on the head when it comes to researching plating information.

Question about making state quarter rings.

The claim: the punch-out edge of the ring turns the finger green because of skin-to-copper contact. The solution: plate the ring, creating a barrier from the copper edge.

Any suggestions/guidance/plating material/whatever?

  #56  
Old 03-01-2018, 04:31 PM
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Probably the easiest options are silver or zinc. Silver is pretty inexpensive these days, and easy to plate (from what I've heard, I've never done it). Silver plating kits are readily available and not that expensive.

Zinc would also work, and of course very inexpensive, but the finish would not be as nice, and zinc, in constant contact with skin would probably dull pretty fast. Zinc protects well because it sacrifices itself easily .... natural acids and such on skin would probably break it down fairly quickly.

  #57  
Old 03-02-2018, 10:19 AM
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I just bought a zinc/cadmium blackening sample kit from these folks and will come back and let everyone know how well it works. I have a pile of AFB idle mixture screws and accelerator pump "S" links which are plated clear (silver) cad that I need to blacken. We will see if this stuff works.

https://www.epi.com/black-oxide/cadm...ta-blak-z-360/

  #58  
Old 03-02-2018, 03:04 PM
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I'd like to try some of that. There are various chassis bolts and such that were original black oxide that cannot really be replicated properly in a home shop. I've been using Manganese but that doesn't offer nearly the protection of real black oxide. Blackened Zinc would be the best of both worlds, right color, great protection. There are home/shop type black oxide processes but they are not nearly as penetrating and corrosion resistant as the factory parts.

  #59  
Old 06-29-2018, 03:26 PM
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Latest zinc plating pics.

Just picked up a four core PB GTO radiator. Still had the tag on it but the tag was pretty rough, wanted to try to save it. First pic shows original condition, 2nd after bead blasting, 3thrd after plating and light bead blasting again to polish. These were originally I think plain steel, that got painted black along with the radiator. This one will also get painted black but hopefully the underlying zinc (which takes paint very well) will help protect it for the next 20 years.





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  #60  
Old 02-10-2019, 01:58 PM
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I have recently been trying this zinc plating at home. I did a lot of research on what all to use, including the instructions in this thread. One thing I found is it seems like the electrolyte solution formula is pretty flexible. I saw one guy using 100% vinegar with epsom salt. I saw another using a 50/50 mix of vinegar and water, and then this formula which uses less vinegar. It seems they all plate well. I didn't bother with the zinc sulfate as the solution will quickly become saturated with the zinc from the anode. You can also just let some zinc sit in the vinegar for a while before mixing everything up to help load the solution.

I first few things I did turned out pretty good. These included some alternator fans and pulleys. But now after just these few things, I am having troubles getting anything to plate good. The pulley I was just working on plated in some spots and left bare metal in other spots. I thought one problem could be the copper wires were getting so zinc plated that the current to the part was affected. Tried new wires and didn't help. I have been careful to clean the parts well with alcohol, use rubber gloves, the whole bit. Not sure what the problem is. I am thinking maybe the electrolyte solution is dirty or contaminated, but, I would hope it would last longer than just a few parts. Anyone else run into this issue? Any help/suggestions appreciated.

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