how to do zinc plating of metal parts for corrosion protection diy electroplating

on the back of the cafe racer I have these what used to be chrome wheel adjusters or chain tightener things they're really really rusted I can clean these off with some coca-cola and aluminum foil but that tricks just temporary so I'm going to remove these today and replate them in rust proof zinc to strip off the old chrome and rust I'm just going to pop these in my vibrating parts some blur [Music] badass all of the rust and the old chrome is stripped off and it's ready to replate with zinc the way this is going to work is I'm going to have a container filled with some DIY electrolyte solution the part in on a wire and one wire goes to the battery and the other wire goes from the battery to a zinc cathode when I apply electricity to this the ions are gonna flow from the zinc cathode onto the part which and it'll be all covered in zinc most of my electrolyte solutions just this plain tap water it's about 40 degrees Celsius so don't go too hot with the water because chemically it'll actually accelerate the plating and it'll form crystals which is bad I'm going to add to sportful of sodium carbonate it basically balances the pH of the electrolyte solution and the salt and it helps conduct electricity and the electrolyte this stuff's pretty cheap you can just pick it up is washing soda you would normally add some vinegar to the solution to make the electrolyte a little acidic I don't have any vinegar so I'm just going to use some pickle juice this is my anode the zinc plate you can just buy it like a boding supply store they use them as sacrificial anodes to prevent galvanic corrosion on boats I just need to drill a hole in this so I can hang my wire on it I'm just going to use some electrical grade assembly tape to attach my wires to my power source the red is hot the black is power before zinc plating I'm just going to wipe the part down with some methyl ethyl acetone and attach one wire to my part and the other wire on my zinc anode so with the power hooked up I'm just going to submerge both my zinc anode and my chain adjuster the electricity is going to flow through the electrolyte solution taking zinc ions from the zinc plate and transferring them to my part which creates the zinc plating and this should only take about three or 400 seconds that should be enough time that's badass check out that plate so the zinc part looks a lot better than just the raw metal and the zinc plated parts not going to rust now that it's protected so I'm gonna finish up and do this one and get these back on the bike I use inked plating is so badass I'm giving myself five out of five achieve on moto stickers if you liked the video share it with your friends and click here to subscribe to the Ichiban moto youtube channel

Channel: Ichiban Moto

Views: 2,147,408

Keywords: Corrosion (Disaster Type), Zinc (Chemical Element), Plating, electroplating, zinc electroplating, zinc plating kit, custom motorcycle, café, café racer, Do It Yourself (Hobby), Cafe, hipster, built not bought, Maker Faire (Recurring Event), diy electroplating, metal plating, car parts, hot rod, bobber, brat style, chopper, motorcycle project

Id: Wy6u2kikAA4

Length: 3min 43sec (223 seconds)

Published: Wed May 06 2015