After a few seconds, you should notice the base metal starting to turn yellow. You are on the right track! Keep swirling and rotating your object to get a deeper red color and a thicker copper plate. Failure to do so will give you "burn spots" where the copper accumulated too quickly. Again, you will get burn spots for the reasons stated in the above.
Your shiny, newly copper plated object will quickly patina as it is exposed to air, water, salt, skin, and more. This oxidation can be removed from an unprotected surface with a very light polish. If you decide to polish your plated object, use gentle pressure and mild cleaners to avoid polishing off the copper layer. If you really want to get fancy, you can also do reverse electroplating to remove patina - just do a quick dip in your electrolyte with the electrode voltages swapped. The cool thing about copper plated items is that the copper plating allows you to plate it with other, trickier metals.
For example, nickel doesn't like to adhere to some steels without some coaxing. So, you can apply a light copper plating before applying a nickel coat. On another note, you can save your left over copper acetate solution for later plating uses as well. Just place the lid on the jar and seal tight. Rinse everything that comes into contact with the solution well and store in a safe place. Can I plate [insert your metal here] with copper?
It depends. Certain metals play nice together, others do not. The ones that do not are called "dissimilar metals". In the picture, you'll find a table I borrowed from RFI. The table is designed to let you know when a galvanic reaction might occur causing corrosion. For our purposes, it also tells us which metals are compatible and which are not. The lower the magnitude of the number aka the absolute value , the more compatible ie similar the metals will be.
If you are trying to plate a metal that is not compatible, you may need to plate with nickel or another metal first. Aluminum, for example, should be plated with nickel before it can be plated with copper. First, you need to make them conductive. You can do this with conductive paints, conductive glues, and even metal leaf think gold leaf as long as whatever you are coating your surface with is not water soluble. I haven't experimented much with this myself which means you will have to.
Send me a message with your results and I'll post them here for others to reference. As little as possible. The lower the voltage and current, the better results you will get. You need a minimum of 0. A C or D cell battery will give you pretty decent results.
If you don't have access to lower voltages, you can put the electrolyte into a big container and move your electrodes as far away from another as you can - the increase in distance will also increase the resistance of the circuit and decrease the current. Can I use copper chloride or another electrolyte instead of making it with vinegar and such?
Yes, you can. I just like the idea of making my own chemicals. You can get root kill which are green crystals if I recall at your local hardware store for relatively cheap. Can I use other acids other than acetic acid vinegar? This instructable was written for average Joes and Jolenes, not chemists. Other acids can be significantly more dangerous as well as release some very nasty, very toxic chemicals into the air.
Unless you are an experience chemist ie you have an actual degree, not just AP Chem in high school or Chem in college , I would not recommend playing with other chemicals. Is plating coins illegal? The first thing I want to point out is that I'm only using coins because they are everywhere and cheap by definition. The copper and nickel content make them ideal for small experiments.
This isn't a "how to plate coins" instructable, coins are simply handy and recognizable. For those of you who took high school chem lab, you probably used quarters, dimes, and pennies for a couple different classroom experiments. As far as the legality of plating coins, to my understanding, it is legal as long as you 1 Aren't removing metal from the coins with intent to sell that metal, 2 Are not trying to pass them as something they are not ie a copper plated dime is worth 10 cents, nothing more , and 3 Aren't defacing the coins for malicious intent.
As a personal disclaimer, this is MY understanding - take it with a grain of salt. If this is incorrect, I would welcome a friendly email or message from the US Treasury or other qualified persons. Why are you using a 6V lantern battery when you say that lower voltages are better? This was hammered into shape for statues, books and many other artifacts.
Modern gold plating, called gold electroplating, relies on a chemical process to combine various layers of metal into a solid piece with a layer of gold resting on the surface. Electroplating has been in use commercially since the s and was heavily refined during the two World Wars. In all gold plating, the part is polished and cleaned as thoroughly as possible before the electroplating process starts.
Gold plating will look uneven and smudged if the surface is dirty, oily, scratched or otherwise damaged. Modern electroplating begins with the creation of a metal salt using the plating metal, typically gold or silver. These salts are formed when an acid and a base combine and create a neutralization reaction.
Metal salts are formed when positively charged ions of a metal are combined with an acid or with a non-metal. The current is directed to the component and dissolves the metal salts as it moves through the bath.
Gold molecules ride the current and are deposited onto your component. Gold plating can be added to almost any metal, including brass, copper or nickel. Silver items can also be gold-plated. Some pieces will actually be plated with a wide range of metals even if you can only see the gold plating. If you have a silver component, for example, it will first be plated with copper because copper will make the plating tarnish slower.
Alkaline cleaning is used to remove numerous different soils, mainly heavy oils and grease. It can be used as either a soak cleaner, where the part is immersed in the cleaner, or as an electro cleaner. Acid cleaning will remove any remaining oxides as well as some light soils. Once you have completed the first part of the cleaning process, it is important to check the surface cleanliness before activating.
A water break test is an easy, quick way to check. Just dip in clean water and see if the item is covered with a water film or if it beads. If it has a water film all over it, with no beading, then it can go to the pickle stage. If you can see the water beading then you need to wash in detergent and water, rinse well and repeat the water break test again until it passes.
You can also use the white cloth test. Simply rub the part with a white cloth to check for any residues on the surface. If the cloth does not remain white you will need to repeat the cleaning processes before activation. Activation is critical in ensuring the new surface adheres to the base metal and creates a good bond.
The activation acid slightly etches the surface, stripping oxides and metal from the surface to expose pure metal atoms. Our dry acid pickle is specially formulated for use as a plating pickle or as a metal activator. Once pickled and rinsed, you need to plate straight away. This way you will not give the metal any time to form an oxide layer on the surface.
The better you can prepare a surface, the better the results will be. So, spend extra time flatting, buffing and polishing if needed. This is essential when brush plating as you are only putting a very thin plate on the base metal so the more polished you can get the base metal the better. If buffing or polishing remember to remove the polish film with a solvent cleaner if needed and wash in detergent and water again after. Always check with the water break test before pickling.
How to Make a Pure Sample of Potassium. How to Anodize Copper. Aluminum Vs. Copper Conductivity. How to Calculate Battery Voltage. How to Calculate Time to Heat Water. How to Make Sodium Nitrate.
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