Plating Cost.

[Carl S.]

Hello, I spent the day plating some of my parts. I was curious how much it would cost to have them professionally plated.
I think I have a pretty good match.

I am producing:
Blue Chromate
Yellow Chromate
Black Chromate

This is what I plated today.

[john walker's workshop]

What is your setup? Been thinking I should start doing that.

[Carl S.]

I am using the Caswell chemicals. Took a bunch of learning but finally got it correct. It is awesome now that it is going well.

It is slow, I spent the day in my mechanical room. I can leave in 10 min increments.

Highly recommend it. I have a whole Porsche to go through and knowing I can do it when needed is sweet.

I'd be happy to help if I can.

[carwash]

What is your all in cost for your current setup?

[Carl S.]

OK, not really sure.
The bench I built from osb and 2x4's I had around the house.
buckets- $30 Home Depot
Power Supply- $90 Amazon
copper wire- $20
Copper pipe for hanging- free
Bucket heater- $135
Yellow Chromate $35
Blue Chromate $60
Brightner $35
Caswell copy cad kit. $218.00
25 gal distilled water. $24
Muriatic aciid $10
spray bottle $2.00
Timer $6

I think that is is. $433. I'm sure there is more but that is close.

It is really nice to be able to do the plating in batches of your parts. I know what parts go together.

[911 SLANT]

Very cool!

[carwash]

This is excellent. You could probably make some money coating parts for people. Where did you find all of the information on how to do this?

[Antomero]

I paid lots of money to have my parts plated by Shaun @Tru 6. I sent him a bunch of nuts and bolts. As well as my fuel rails, fuel dampeners and my oil lines for the chain tensioners.

I’m sure you can do very well

[Evans, Marv]

If you were in Cali. doing that out of your own private place, without licenses & permits, you'd probably be in jail so fast your head would swim,.

[mb911]

So the interesting thing is by me (30 minutes drive) there is olace called FPS does a 5 gallon bucket of nuts and bolts etc for $50. I had everything for the 914-6 build done there. It really depends on the part of the country

[TxGerman]

My local plater has a minimum charge of $250. Because of that, I started plating my own also. Similar setup as above, although I also use Epsom salt and zinc sulphate in my solution.

[Carl S.]

MB911, who does the prep on a 5 gal bucket? $50, Dang, that is quite the deal.

Not sure how they would make any money at that. I will have to research how the professionals do that.

I soak in muriatic acid for 20 minutes
water bath
air hose dry
wire wheel if needed
20 minute degreaser bath 170-190 degrees
water bath and spray
plate 15 minutes- the amps are adjusted for each string as it is determined from the total surface area.
water bath
muriatic bath
water bath
yellow chromate -30 seconds
water bath -2 dips
dab off any drips
hang in front of fan to dry. 24 hrs.

[jjeffries]

I visited a pro shop relatively close to me in Connecticut, old-skool shop doing major production work (I saw a batch of 1.2M hooks for a retail display rack system). They have mondo vats of incredibly nasty chemicals to clean and strip, and massive industrial tumblers to prep the parts.

Shaun/Tru-6’s work is at a different level, extremely careful prep work - like painting, the difference is in the preparation.

I think the original poster here is to be commended; that’s a level of commitment and willingness to have buckets of chemicals sitting around that I wouldn’t have the patience or stomach for. But if someone was running a shop or doing one project after another (like JohnW), being able to do this without shipping stuff out, waiting, things getting lost etc would seem like a smart move.

John

I’d be interested to know what the off-gasses are like?

[mepstein]

I've done the $50 bucket deal. There are some positives and negatives. Positive - It's cheap and the plating looks great. Negative - All the prep is on you. For me, that's wire brushing, bead blasting or both. Second, If something is lost or damaged, oh, well.

I have some parts that are expensive and/or not replaceable and they will go to Shawn @ True 6

[djpateman]

What about the baking to reduce hydrogen embrittlement? That would be critical for some parts at least.

[911pcars]

3/4 of the process is in prepping the parts. This includes degreasing, wire brushing, then repeat until base metal shows. Lotsa labor and/or nasty chemicals. Only then can the parts be ready to plate/replate.

[g911]

Preparation is key; degreasing, wire brushing, media blasting, sonic cleaning, tumbling, etc. is time well spent to make sure the hardware is in good nick before sending off to the plater. If you have time and passion for it or plan on doing it often, it makes sense. An organic respirator is highly recommended, and do it out doors or a very well ventilated space. Waste material handling especially caustics can be challenging in some locales and can damage indoor plumbing and the environment as already stated.

[KTL]

If you’re going to do a bunch of stuff, I recommend using things that take some of the load off of you physically. This can get really time consuming and wear you out. If you have access to media blasting, USE IT. Even if it costs you some $ it is a HUGE time saver in terms of effectiveness and uniformity

If you don’t have access to media blasting, which itself is also time consuming and tiring when you’re the one actually doing it (personal experience speaking here), a product I really like that is very human friendly is called EvapoRust. Works very well and is a great first stage of actual stripping. You can use it indoors with no concern, as it has very little smell and no flammability issues like some other nasty chemicals. I use it in my basement with no problems whatsoever.

Just be sure to pre-clean your parts of excessive dirt and grease crud so you don’t needlessly reduce the effectiveness of the EvapoRust chemical. I also have a 10 quart ultrasonic cleaner that helps a lot with that. But the ultrasonic is certainly not a must. Just another time saver. I don’t want to sound like I’m someone who’s unwilling to get his hands dirty. Quite the contrary. I’ve done enough of cleaning up filthy and rusted parts by hand to know that it’s time consuming and physically tiring. So at some point I got a little smarter and bought these things incrementally to make life a little easier. I ain’t getting any younger.......

After the cleaning, I put them in a tumbler and let it do its job with ceramic triangles and then change to walnut shells for final finish. It’s just like polishing scratches in your painted surfaces. How shiny do you want it? I just want it clean. The great thing about the tumbler is that you just fill it up with your parts and then walk away. It can run for hours and hours and no worries. It’s not too loud and works really good if you choose the right media for the job. I don’t do any wire brushing except for the nastiest, pitted parts (and those may be arguably worth replacing if still available new) in the bunch. There’s really aggressive tumbling media that cuts down time but it also gets expensive if you start buying a bunch of different media. All depends on how invested you want to be

Here’s a pic of my EvapoRust treated and tumbled stuff. Note the EvapoRust takes off plating. So it’s not necessarily the tumbling that takes it off. But it certainly can if you choose the right media. Now I need to get the stuff re-plated

[Carl S.]

KTL, I will look into Evaporust. I have a large vibrator tumbler that would be perfect for this if I can mix it in.

I have an exhaust fan as well as 2 charcoal air purifiers. The Caswell chemicals do not seem to be that caustic. I get rid of chemicals at the local dump. They take caustic liquids.

There is a bunch of prep time. Plating is simple but time consuming. However , very rewarding knowing that I refurbished the piece.



This is my car, I have plenty of time.

[mb911]

Originally Posted by Carl S.

MB911, who does the prep on a 5 gal bucket? $50, Dang, that is quite the deal.

Not sure how they would make any money at that. I will have to research how the professionals do that.

I soak in muriatic acid for 20 minutes
water bath
air hose dry
wire wheel if needed
20 minute degreaser bath 170-190 degrees
water bath and spray
plate 15 minutes- the amps are adjusted for each string as it is determined from the total surface area.
water bath
muriatic bath
water bath
yellow chromate -30 seconds
water bath -2 dips
dab off any drips
hang in front of fan to dry. 24 hrs.

Soak in vinegar for 48 hours. Wash off and spray wd40 on all the parts drop off at platers, pick up a day later and spend $50