Electroplating - Easy DIY Nickel, Copper, Zinc Plating

nickel electroplating this is not complicated you need a container some type of small power supply this is an old phone charger anything that pumps out less than about one amp will do if you can't find a power supply a couple of batteries will work vinegar just plain old white vinegar salt like you sprinkle on steak and a piece of whatever metal you want to plate with start with nickel but where do i get the nickel from ebay search for nickel anode add vinegar to container you can mix in about a tablespoon of salt now i'm going to do it in a second so i can show current before and after salting make the nickel into two pieces of nickel hang each piece over the edge of the container connect the power supply to each piece of nickel positive to one piece negative to the other that's it now you're making nickel electrolyte it's really that easy pete what about the salt the only reason we add salt is to increase the conductivity of the liquid watch the multimeter as i add salt if you don't know the polarity of your power supply yet the side with all the bubbles coming off it will be negative you'll need to know that for later when the solution turns green you have successfully made a nickel electrolyte that should take about two hours depending on the power supply assuming you don't wreck it you only need to make the solution once it'll last forever in a sealed container what about other metals let's try copper same deal let it run until the solution turns blue and what about a sink i have no idea let's find out excuse the giant zinc anodes i already had these and excuse the lunch box i ran out of jars zinc doesn't make the solution change color just leave the power on for a couple of hours and assume it's working while the three electrolytes are brewing let's get some test pieces ready to get a successful plate your parts need to be immaculately clean and grease free if you're dealing with rusty parts you'll have to go through a whole process to get them back to good clean metal [Music] but for these little test pieces a squirt of break clean will do if water beads on the part it won't plate now wire up your part on some copper wire now this next part is optional i always dunk my parts in hydrochloric acid immediately prior to plating this will etch the part and act as a final clean this is just hydrochloric acid from the hardware store mix about 50 50 water and acid into a natural greek yogurt container [Music] at a 50 50 mix i leave my parts in for about one minute okay the electrolytes should be ready and we're all set to go let's get plating this is what your nickel electrolyte should look like after an hour or two of brewing it should be a definite green like delicious watery gatorade it will get more concentrated as you use it so don't worry too much about how green it looks to start with get some tap water ready this is just for rinsing the acid off the parts so you don't mess up the electrolyte hang one of the pieces of nickel over the container this is the anode dangle the part into the electrolyte as far away from the anode as practical connect negative to your part [Music] connect positive to the nickel anode [Music] and power up you should see bubbles on the part congratulations you are electroplating if you're just messing around plating stuff for fun about 20 minutes should do it make sure to turn the part around a couple of times during the process so that it plates evenly if you're planning on using the parts for anything you probably want to increase the plating time to about 45 minutes and increase that even more for the first few plates until the solution builds up concentration now copper check out the nice blue color isn't science amazing won't plate directly to steel but it will plate to nickel so anything steel has to be nickel plated first and from there it's exactly the same process as for nickel and zinc i don't actually know if this will work or not let's find out well it's bubbling so if there is zinc in the electrolyte it'll be plating you can see it's turning a dull gray which is zinc so yep no problem okay i think they're all done let's check out the results the first square is the steel control unplated and here's the nickel plated part unless you stuff something up nickel always turns out good you'll be happy and for reference here's a chuck key i made and plated in the same nickel setup next zinc the zinc turned out fine as well that dull gray is what you're going to get without using brighteners the dull side is as plated i gave the other side a quick polish just by hand with some autosol and finally copper this is a little smutty the copper i was using is just copper sheet from the hobby store not necessarily pure but it turned out okay however i obviously didn't plate it for long enough because i almost polished through the copper on the other side but you get the idea so that's it i haven't shown you the ultimate plating setup the point of this video is just to show that there is no barrier to trying this out for yourself so give it a try it's fun and you're only risking ruining some vinegar you

Channel: Geoffrey Croker

Views: 3,363,519

Keywords: electroplating, nickel, copper, zinc, diy plating, diy electroplating, home plating, home electroplating, vinegar electroplating

Id: G-PtnwtOR24

Length: 9min 37sec (577 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 27 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/yvessevy]

So I've been doing some small bicycle parts using this method and it's been going great. Now I figured I want to nickel plate a whole front fork so I bought a nice polypropene (?) tank, 35 liters of white vinegar, some salt and got to work. I dissolved two nickel anodes of 1 x 150 x 25 millimeters in dimension (0,0393701 x 5.90551 x 0.984252 inches for you imperial folks) Doubled my amperage to 1A. Added an aquarium heater (heats to about 30 degrees celcius (68 Fahrenheit) Upped my amps even more by using a car battery charger. (not sure of the exact amps)

So far my results have been bad. No or very little deposits of nickel.

• Is my solution to light? Too little nickel electrolytes?
• Is my current density too low?
• Should I try to improve my conductivity of my solution by adding more salt?

I've since learned about the amps per square inch so upping the amps should improve it somewhat. Ive gotten a thicker 8mm diameter nickel rod that could sit in between the fork to combat low current density areas

Any help, tips, comments would be greatly appreciated!