Nickel plating bike parts - FORKS

[Indyjps]

Ta Da

zinc/nickel on crank arms, chainring spacer, cone spacer. zinc on washers and spindle. bolts cleaned up in oxalic acid.

These will be going on a 2013 United KL40 Pro. I'll do a build thread if ya'll wanna see a BMX get repainted and put together. I'd like to nickel the forks.

 

[The Renaissance Man]

Looks great!

 

[us56456712]

Copper plating is real easy. I use about 75% Simple Green and 25% Dawn Dish Soap. Put your steel in the bath and toss in some copper wire. They can't touch each other. Don't use any electricity as it causes the steel to turn black. The next morning the steel has a beautiful copper plate on it. I guess it makes it's own battery. Anyway this is cheap and easy and you could try that as a base plate. Your result looks great with the zinc.

 

[OneHorsePower]

Copper plating is real easy. I use about 75% Simple Green and 25% Dawn Dish Soap. Put your steel in the bath and toss in some copper wire. They can't touch each other. Don't use any electricity as it causes the steel to turn black. The next morning the steel has a beautiful copper plate on it. I guess it makes it's own battery. Anyway this is cheap and easy and you could try that as a base plate. Your result looks great with the zinc.

whats in 'simple green' i need to find in a Canadian alternative product?
curious to try this

 

[us56456712]

whats in 'simple green' i need to find in a Canadian alternative product?
curious to try this

http://www.livestrong.com/article/127339-active-ingredients-simple-green/
It's a powerful degreaser but is environmentally safe. It comes in a spray bottle or gallons. You could order it from the net. I discovered the copper plating by accident. I was soaking a disassembled coaster brake hub in the mixture of Dawn and Simple green and all the steel parts got copper plated from the copper in the brake pads. I have since used this method to copper plate steel parts on a vintage saddle. It might work with just the Simple Green, but I never tried that. Since it has no petroleum solvents and smells nice a lot of people use it to clean bike frames and parts. You can work in the shop without the nasty petro or acetone vapors.

 

[A.S.BOLTNUT]

I can appreciate the effort your putting in to
Do this , back in the day I used to chrome everything but the rates of the service soon turned me away from the added bling, I've always liked the look of nickel . Nice work

~ Rafael ~

 

[Indyjps]

Copper plating is real easy. I use about 75% Simple Green and 25% Dawn Dish Soap. Put your steel in the bath and toss in some copper wire. They can't touch each other. Don't use any electricity as it causes the steel to turn black. The next morning the steel has a beautiful copper plate on it. I guess it makes it's own battery. Anyway this is cheap and easy and you could try that as a base plate. Your result looks great with the zinc.

That's awesome, never heard of that combo. how does the copper hold up on its own, I'd love to do some parts, does it require frequent polishing or does a coat of wax per season keep it looking good?

1 limitation of electrolysis is the coating is line of sight, requires frequent turning for an even coat, if you have holes like the cranks, you need to stick an electrode inside.

Does this copper method coat evenly, and get inside of holes- bolt holes etc?

Hmm, wonder if it only works with copper or if other metals can be used.

I've just started messing with the copper electrolysis and only used it as a pre plate. I can say my method needs some work, I'm not getting a strong bond. the zinc is working much better, I've been sticking with it.

Just did some bike hardware tonight, came out whitish but smooth, didn't polish it, just scotchbrite finish.

 

[LukeTheJoker]

Results look great @Indyjps!

Luke.

 

[us56456712]

That's awesome, never heard of that combo. how does the copper hold up on its own, I'd love to do some parts, does it require frequent polishing or does a coat of wax per season keep it looking good?

1 limitation of electrolysis is the coating is line of sight, requires frequent turning for an even coat, if you have holes like the cranks, you need to stick an electrode inside.

Does this copper method coat evenly, and get inside of holes- bolt holes etc?

Hmm, wonder if it only works with copper or if other metals can be used.

I've just started messing with the copper electrolysis and only used it as a pre plate. I can say my method needs some work, I'm not getting a strong bond. the zinc is working much better, I've been sticking with it.

Just did some bike hardware tonight, came out whitish but smooth, didn't polish it, just scotchbrite finish.

My experience has been that the copper coating on the rear hub was uneven, but it was shock so I never did anything to try and see if it could be made more even. I didn't leave the hub parts in the solution very long. Perhaps better cleaning and rotating of the parts would have resulted in a better plate. I copper plated steel rivets from an old seat and I just tossed them into the bath. They came out even. So far the plating has stayed. I don't know much about this method. It was an accidental discovery but the plating effect is genuine. I don't know how it compares to other methods.

 

[Indyjps]

Copper plating is real easy. I use about 75% Simple Green and 25% Dawn Dish Soap. Put your steel in the bath and toss in some copper wire. They can't touch each other. Don't use any electricity as it causes the steel to turn black. The next morning the steel has a beautiful copper plate on it. I guess it makes it's own battery. Anyway this is cheap and easy and you could try that as a base plate. Your result looks great with the zinc.

Testing this method out. I'm using Zep purple degreaser, same basic ingredients as simple green and generic laundry soap.

Trying both copper and zinc.

Wire wheeled a couple rusty bolts, added degreaser, added soap. Definately something weird going on, as soon as I added the soap, the bolt started giving off tiny bubbles (very similar to electroplating). White in the pic are bubbles.

Full disclosure as always, if the Zep doesn't work, I'll try again with simple green.

 

[horsefarmer]

Big fan of Zep cleaner - bought a spray bottle of the clear amber kind - cleans all kinds of stuff awesome!

 

[us56456712]

Testing this method out. I'm using Zep purple degreaser, same basic ingredients as simple green and generic laundry soap.

Trying both copper and zinc.

Wire wheeled a couple rusty bolts, added degreaser, added soap. Definately something weird going on, as soon as I added the soap, the bolt started giving off tiny bubbles (very similar to electroplating). White in the pic are bubbles.
View attachment 40735
Full disclosure as always, if the Zep doesn't work, I'll try again with simple green.

WHAT ARE YOU USING FOR THE COPPER ELECTRODE?

 

[Indyjps]

10 GA copper electrical wire. Pretty pure but not much surface area.

 

[us56456712]

10 GA copper electrical wire. Pretty pure but not much surface area.

The last time I did this I used a native copper ingot from Keweenaw County Michigan that I dug out of an old poor rock dump.
It has impurities including silver and arsenic and who knows what else. It was about the size and shape of an ovalized half dollar. Before that I used two bendix coaster brake shoes that looked like bronze but the copper came out to plate the rest of the steel brake parts that were soaking along with the shoes. Copper wire should work?

 

[Indyjps]

Nothing so far, any bubbling has stopped, added more zep and soap, will let it sit overnight. If it doesn't work, I'll have to get simple green and dawn and retry. Maybe a copper scrubber for better surface area.

I want to figure this one out, the line of sight with electrolysis limits the process.

Bronze would be great if it works the same, shouldn't tarnish as much if it plates out.

 

[us56456712]

I found a picture of my Bendix 2 speed manual that I tried to clean in Simple Green and Dawn. It was in 2015. In 2016 I used this method to copper plate a rivet for a bike seat I built. You can't scrub off the copper, I tried to clean up the Bendix and the copper is now part of it. I used a small ingot for the seat rivets.

Here is the homemade long spring saddle I made. I copper plated one of the rivets using Simple Green and Dawn. The rivet on the nose was from another saddle and was steel so I plated it to match.

 

[Terra Incognita]

I
View attachment 40791

The partial plating has really got me. Looks like perfect rat patina...really interesting look.

 

[horsefarmer]

I have an old rusty set of bars, no plating left on them, how much prep work is needed to prep for plating with these methods?

 

[Indyjps]

After 24 hours I'm seeing light copper plating on the bolt, can't tell either way on the zinc.

Possible issues with my set up. Copper surface area is low with just a wire. Temp of solution is about 35-40 degrees in the garage and may be slowing down any reaction.

Think I'll switch to simple green and dawn, a copper scrubber, and set these in the house. No bad fumes like electroplating. Might get an old pan and see if higher temp will crank up the results.

Need to get a consistent copper result, for a test method, then continue to test other metals. Zinc, bronze, nickel.

 

[Indyjps]

I have an old rusty set of bars, no plating left on them, how much prep work is needed to prep for plating with these methods?

I wire wheeled the bolts for the degreaser plating.

Electroplating you need clean steel, any rust will prevent a good bond, I've been etching with muratic acid after wire wheeling on anything rusty. I've not had good results copper electroplating. The zinc was working well enough I've been focusing on that. Need to keep the piece moving in solution for copper, or add an aerator - without it, you get blackening or burn marks, the lower the voltage the better.