I want to know a bout home zinc plating

[Larry S]

When our Hodakas were new, many of the parts were zinc plated. The zinc plating is a corrosion thing. Zinc is much softer than steel. If you are in a corrosive environment, the zinc will be attacked long before the steel.

Today, more than forty years later, the zinc has done it's job. It's gone.

I want to buy a "kit" so I can replate all the nuts, bolts, brackets, spokes, etc. If you have any experience with home zinc plating I want your input.

Larry S

[Bill2001]

Eastwood has soak-and-plate electroplating kits. Caswell has quick brush-and-plate kits for small jobs.

[go_hercules]

I bought the Caswell kit. If you did like one or two bolts or nuts at a time, the plating was so-so and no better. I experimented for days. If you tried doing more parts, the plating was so spotty it was useless. The best parts I could manage were not that good. The plating was uneven and thin. I finally gave the kit to someone else, don't think he had any luck either. My advice is to not bother. I ended up taking stuff to a plater and had no problems.

[Al Harpster]

I stripped and re-plated a bunch of parts on my B+.

If you own, or want to own a sandblaster loaded with glass bead media, a pretty good size compressor, a nice DC power supply you can get started.

If you don't own, or don't want to own these I'd suggest you don't proceed.

I did not get pricing for stripping and re-plating the parts from a plating shop. I did mine in nickel because it looks nicer.

I'm confident that I spent much more money than I would have cost to have the work done for me. And I spent a load of time figuring out my preparation mistakes. That's how I came to own the sandblaster and compressor.

I had a good time learning all the ins and outs. And I wanted to do it myself. I'm happy I did the work, enjoyed doing it once I learned all the problems that arise.

Caswell is probably your best bet for success. Expect to have some waste products to get rid of. You're going to have some waste to dispose of properly. I think you can buy & download their plating manual on line for something like $25. If you are still interested, buy that first. Read and re-read it.

Properly preparing old parts for plating is easily 50% to 75% of the work. Improper prep equals poor results. If they don't look really nice before plating they won't look any good after.

There are many youtube videos out there on zinc plating that will give you an idea of what you'd be in for & the mess it can make.

Al Harpster

[Bill2001]

Good post. It all starts with surface prep. The DPO on my bike wirebrushed most every bolt to remove rust, thereby also removing the plating. Bolts are rusting. Instead of removing all bolts and keeping up with what goes where or replacing everything with too-shiny new, I'll get a zinc electroplating kit and do it in small batches.

Slowly but surely.

[Hydraulic Jack]

Here's a discussion from another forum on what to use and how to do it at home using mostly readily available stuff. Zinc might be hard to find in some areas, but the internet should provide if you can't find zinc flashing.

http://thefactoryfiveforum.com/showthre ... -and-Bolts

[BrianZ]

I do a lot of zinc plating with a Caswell kit. It works really well once you get the hang of it. Unfortunately, "getting the hang of it" takes a fair bit of experimenting. The best advice I can give is to adjust the plating current until the part give off some bubbles. In addition it needs to be agitated while plating. As for surface prep, degrease the parts, drop them into a solution of diluted muriatic acid, rinse them, and they are usually ready to plate. Muriatic acid is available in the pool supply section of most hardware stores. Read the label and don't do anything stupid with the acid. It can be nasty if not handled correctly.

[Hydraulic Jack]

Muriatic acid is commonly used to etch concrete, so you will find it easily enough in hardware stores that carry chemicals.