Electroplating - Easy DIY Nickel, Copper, Zinc Plating

The recipe for basic electroplating.
1. Vinegar. 2. A dash of salt. 3. A piece of whatever metal you plan to use.
I recommend starting with Nickel.

I don’t know what other metals will work or not. Experiment like a mad scientist and find out. Just be careful around chemicals.
I don’t think there is anything particularly nasty about the nickel, copper, or zinc solutions. But I’m not a chemist so use your own judgment. I wear gloves and don’t go out of my way to breath the fumes. There will be a small amount of chlorine gas produced by the salt. Just don’t be a dork and you’ll live through it.

A couple of notes…
Don’t try and plate over zinc plated parts with anything other than zinc. The zinc will destroy the nickel/copper solutions. I mean, don’t let me stop you experimenting, but that’s probably what will happen.

Be careful around stainless steel. It contains chromium. I don’t know what happens when you try this with stainless, but best not to mess with anything that might contain chromium.

For that matter, real chrome plating at home is out of the question unless you have a death wish. Hexavalent
Chromium, which is what’s used for electroplating, is really nasty stuff. A cobalt/nickel mix is a close enough visual match for chrome plating.

When you’re ready to step up to a kit, for New Zealand and Australia, I recommend Jane Kits. For the rest of the world, google Caswell Plating.

[TungstenCarbideTempe]

This video is:
1) Simple, easy to understand
2) goes straight to the point without intro, B.S. ads and other crap
3) is saturated with an amazing, needed information
4) no annoying background music
5) clear, clean sound
6) should be a tutorial for YouTubers who ended up in hell for making crapy videos and now have to go trough soul cleanse( yes its like bowel cleansing, but with added turbo, blue-flame colored fire and no handles on sides of toilet seat for one to hold on to).
Me?
Im gonna wrap myself in blanket and continue my couched, judgmental video observations, with my expert knowledge of everything.

[Ajmanistan]

The lower the amp, the more the detail.

[RtroZone]

I used to work in an electroplating facility in Syracuse, NY called Anoplate. This setup is pretty primitive but the basics are there and yeah, that's how it works. I used to work on the nickle line and the black chrome line. Ever notice how some metal parts are black but super shiny? That's black chrome. Anoplate had a contract with GM to do the plating on their car parts and I was the only person allowed to do the black chrome on them.
So if you've ever seen a Corvette made between 2003-2006, that hood ornament was made by me.

[shrug]

This is really one of the best plating primers on Youtube. Simple and direct. No nonsense, so you can actually sit and take notes. You could be a teacher!

[The_Goood_Sort_Of_Slob]

That "but where do i get the nickel from?" Was beautiful.

[earthelder]

Great video! a lot of antique cars people thought had chrome but was actually "nickel" that was highly polished. The magic is in the preparation and polishing. Thanks for the great video!

[amanofmanyparts]

In the 1970's I worked for an electroplating firm (since bankrupted by fines from unsafe disposal of chemical waste). We used to 'jiggle' the items being plated to make the bubbles break free of their surfaces. In some case it was a vibration and others it was moving the whole rack of items side to side. We also plated nut and bolts in huge nylon drums that rotated to keep them moving and contacting at different points. We did the lot: Nickel, copper, zinc, silver and even gold. If it could be electroplated, we electroplated with it!

One friend of the owner brought in a pair of P100 headlamps off his pre-war Rolls to be gold plated to make them shine with a yellow cast to the beams.

Meanwhile I'm assuming that citric acid might be as good as vinegar (acetic acid) as you can make it to the concentration you require by dissolving more or fewer crystals in the water. I usually have half to a kilo or so on hand for home brewing purposes. It's also good for cleaning copper utensils and ornaments.

[chromedog]

Very informative.

My dad was a chromium electroplater (his trade). Sure, he also did Nickel, zinc and bronze plating, but his job was mostly around the chromium.

Poly- and hexa-valent chromium are some scary things that you really shouldn't screw around with unless you know what you are doing. They WILL give you cancer (and when it comes to lung-cancer risk scale from the fumes, "Smoking 2-packs a day" doesn't even rate on that scale.)

[jakebaldwin]

"Its green... like green Gatorade"

My first thought: "Its got electrolytes"

[RadioFixer]

This is the best detailed video on YouTube. Thank you so much for taking your valuable time to make this. Very detailed and simple to understand the process. Great job!!

[LittleDangerMouse]

I've got about a thousand pieces of old mismatched door hardware in my house and this will make my life a million times easier, and save me a ton of money. Thanks so much for making such a clear and concise video!

[Digitalman]

Amazing tutorial. Straight to the point. Those bell-dings are louder than a babies scream and I thought my ears were going to bleed. Extremely grateful for your help, and I keep revisiting this tutorial to see if I missed anything.

[lenburton]

Back when I worked as a photolab technician we would drop copper pennies I to exhausted film fixr .
after a few minutes it would start to grow little silver whiskers, they werent pure silver as the copper contaminated the silver.
A simplified explaination of this is your film has light sensitive silver salts that are needed for exposure and are removed during processing being dissolved in the fixer (typically sodium thiosulfate) a typical recycling strategy was to flow the solution through a steel wool filter then send it to kodak.
At one of the labs I worked at they did not recover the silver from the one hour film processors so I put a ball of oooo steel wool into the waste tank, the silver dissolved in the fixer would exchange for the iron in steel wool and after a while you would have silver wool.
Doing this for 4 years I ended up with 8 pounds of silver after refining. Every girl I went out with for years got a handmade silver ring also I made a crossguard for a longsword I made.
Fun times

[murfspop]

To check the thickness on any plated part, tape the test piece on 2 sides .When the tape is removed you can determine the plating thickness.

[philhines]

Thank you for explaining this in such a clear way! Tried to do this when I was younger, but a tutorial like this would have meant I didn’t miss any details needed to make it work properly!

[ZeedijkMike]

Sometimes simplicity is the best - and this looks so simple that I'm going to have a go at it.
Thanks for sharing.

[Johanniscool]

It only works if you use a natural Greek yoghurt container. DO NOT use flavoured yoghurt containers.

[donnacrozier]

Best beginner guide on this I’ve see, thanks for doing this. You saved me from buying an overly expensive plating kit. I’m off to get some jars, yogurt 😉, vinegar and salt.

[malcolmwatson]

Great video. Removes the fear of trying it out. Good clear explanation. Well done!

[jaredj]

Thank you I had no idea this was so easy. I’m actually regretting some builds in the past now knowing I could have so easily nickel or copper plated them