How to Restore and Chrome Pot Metal (mazak, monkey metal, zamak)

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hi there today we're going to be looking at replacing and restoring some pot metal Parts pot metal is that really cheap nasty alloy and it was the cheapest thing that they could cast Parts out of it was used throughout all of the car industry because it can be chromed easily when it's new the big problem with this material is that it doesn't age well at all it breaks down into deep pits and it's actually the alloy itself breaking down some of the problems associated with it are not being able to polish all the pit marks out sometimes it won't accept the plating very well and it will blister and there's just a whole lot of things that can go wrong with it there's no better way to describe it this material is absolutely rubbish but we will do the best we can with what we've got and we will see how good we can get it foreign [Music] first of all we've got to get this booked in photographed and now we can put that with the job and get it into the workshop [Music] so now we're in the stripping room because the first job that we've got to do is we've got to remove all the original plating back down to the bare metal so that we can start again right to do this we've got to wire it all up on copper wires so we can pass an electrical current through it similar to electroplating but we're going to actually reverse the polarity and plate the old plating off here it is going into the stripper tank which is mostly sulfuric acid with some other things like Glycerine in it now you can see it fizing away as the old plating is being removed now that it's turned its time to remove it from the tank and the acids swilled off in fresh water once the water's dried off these they'll be ready to go into the polishing shop for the next stage foreign the first operation we've got to do is to remove all of the marks that are in it and this is what we call cutting out because we're going to cut all those marks out of the item with these pot metal or mazak parts or whatever your name that you use for it a lot of the marks aren't actually from corrosion that the zinc alloy itself breaking down and it breaks down into deep pits and we're going to try and polish these out can't always do it but we're gonna try our best what makes it more complicated is the complex shapes that these items are cast into we've got to try and polish the marks out while retaining the detail and the shape which is a bit of a tall order but we are pretty good at it [Music] this material doesn't create Sparks but you can see a bit of dust coming off it now and then as Metals being removed [Music] to get to as many parts as possible with about before moving on to one of these tools to get into the little recesses that you can't this is a mop that's stitched together a stitch Mark and it's dressed up with an abrasive compound [Music] [Music] now we're moving on to a different type of tool this one's not made the bits of cotton stitched together this is actually made of felt so you can shape a felt and then dress it up to what you need with what abras is [Music] [Music] when you're doing a job like this you need a little arsenal of different tools to get into different nooks and crannies there you see a tiny tool for getting into the corners [Music] foreign ERS here are little tiny Felts that we've dressed up [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] flexible you can get it to run into that little recess that he's polishing just now [Applause] [Music] an abrasive belt you can't get into those areas you would just dig them out and make a mess of it [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] ready to go into the plating shop with these we're going to put a coat of copper on them to build them up if they were brand new it wouldn't require that because when this stuff is new it's got a very fine surface finish so it requires minimal polishing [Music] foreign this is the first visit into the plating shop for these items the first thing we've got to do is wire them all up onto couple wires and copper hooks so that when they go in the tank we can pass an electric current through them that's the reason it's called electroplating foreign although this procedure seems pretty simple you've got to make sure that they're all wired up to get a good electrical contact and also in the correct orientation set they play properly [Music] foreign now it's into the cleaning tank this is a hot soapy cleaner and we're going to make sure that there's no traces of dirt grease fingerprints anything like that because any of that will stop it plating properly [Music] once these are all thoroughly wiped down it now goes into the electric cleaner and in this cleaner we've passed an electric current through it and what this does is it removes any oxide film that might have formed on the surface of the work this makes the surface what we call Active because if it's not then it's passive and it'll plate but it won't stick properly foreign first plating tank which is the cyanide copper as it's plating chili splits the water back into oxygen and hydrogen and that's what you can see fizzing away there once it's been in there for a few minutes and it's a lovely salmon pink color this is when they're ready to go into the next process this process on this occasion is going to be a high build acid copper they were new pop metal or maze at Parts they go straight into the nickel tank this buildup of copper now enables us to do some more polishing to improve the surface finish foreign once the water's dried off them they're ready for more polishing now we're back into the polishing shop for the second time and polish up all of these copper plated parts to really make them shine and give them a great finish so that we can nickel and chrome them and make a nice job of them [Music] all right just going over them with a very fine abrasive belt this is a 600 belt [Music] this will just remove any little minor imperfections that are still there the reason why we use a high built copper in the previous plating stage so we've got a much more stable surface to polish than the zinc itself [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] to really build the shine on these and bring them to a mirror finish [Music] what we use in here is a soft mop a stitch mop again like we used previously but this is dressed up with a much finer Polishing Compound [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] just a case of carefully working through each component sure that it's all beautifully polished ready for nickel and probe little and often is the key with polishing compounds [Applause] [Music] now the polishing's finished they're ready for their final plating [Music] now we're into the plating shop for the final time where we're going to apply the nickel and chrome layers as before we're gonna wire these items up onto couple wires to pass a current through them but it's a little bit more intricate this time because we've got to use insulation pieces so that we can get the Chrome layer which is actually very difficult to get to Plate where you want it to where we need it foreign foreign ER which is just a soapy cleaner and then we're going to make sure that all of these are given a thorough wipe down to remove any traces of dirt and grease thank you now we're back into the electric cleaner and it's the same procedure again pass a current through it and that will remove the oxides from the surface to make it active to accept the plating so that it all adheres properly now we're going through a counter flow wrench system and we're going from dirty water to progressively cleaner water this last tank is a dilute acid just to remove any traces of the cleaning solutions if we don't do that then they would come out of the nickel stain so now it's into the nickel tank now this is where all of the good looks and the weather protection come from so this is basically the most important plating layer there is after setting the power depending on the surface area in the tank it's time to let it cook away for an hour or so put a nice deposit on they can see how all of the shine and all of the good looks are from the nickel layer [Music] after swilling the solution off going to be time to move along to the Chromecast Chrome is literally a flash of plating it's only in there for about on small items like this about two or three minutes it's not normally any thicker than 200 thousandths of an inch thick the Chrome layer so it is really very thin but the big Advantage is Chrome is a noble metal so that it will not tarnish and it's these properties that it's used for on top of the nickel [Music] after the solutions rinsed off it's neutralized and after it's neutralized it's just a rinse and some clean water foreign [Music] once the water's dried from them they'll be ready to inspect and make sure that they're in good condition so now all the plating's finished it's just time to inspect them and make sure that they're all right for the customer so the first thing to do is remove all of the components from the wires so we can get them on the bench and start having a look [Music] as you can see even this relatively simple end part is still time consuming and laborious now it's time to remove all the watermarks so a bit of polish on them so we can give them a wipe over and see what we've got once all of the items have been wiped down they're ready to be packaged for the customer I'm quite happy with how this job's come out but before I show it to you we need to have a conversation about this material whether you call it pop metal mazak monkey metal or any other name that you know for it one thing that is certain is it is absolute rubbish it was rubbish when it was noon and it's old rubbish now back in the day I know that my dad worked for a company that did car handles by the thousands and they actually used to polish with a bin by their machine so that they could throw away the ones that were no good even at the polishing stage we don't have the luxury of a never-ending supply of carts so we can only do the best that we can with the parts that you give us so let's have a look at these parts and see how they came out on the whole this job's come out pretty well and I'm quite pleased with it however on closer inspection if we have a look we will find some defects if you look here there's some pitting now we can't remove this without losing all the detail the problem that you have with zinc alloy is it's used to cast complex shapes here's a different job that we haven't done yet although we can polish these areas here we can even make special tools and polish into this recess where this goes in here we're not going to be able to get right in there to polish it out so we can't remove all the pitting we would have to remove all the detail from this casting to do it due to complex shapes you can be limited onto which areas you can get to to polish that's the same problem that we've had with this Chrysler job on this part here you can see there's a blister that's been raised normally the cause of a blister is porosity in the material so it's porous and soaking up different solutions like a sponge here's a piece of scrap pop metal here there's porosity in the casting now if this won't polish out then you're going to get blisters appear and there's nothing you can do about it you can't overcome porosity in the casting because it prevents the first layer of plating from sticking to it here's one last look at these finished pot metal parts and a little reminder of what they look like before we restored them okay if you want to know more about the plating process then you need to look at this video here where you'll learn a lot more about restoring a set of bumpers
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Channel: Chrome and Car Restoration
Views: 44,040
Rating: undefined out of 5
Keywords: pot metal repair, pot metal, monkey metal, pot metal chrome plating, removing chrome from pot metal, pot metal chrome, pot metal chrome restoration, repairing pot metal chrome, painting pot metal chrome, can you chrome pot metal, how to chrome metal parts, chrome shop, chrome plating, restoration, chrome, dicast chrome, diecast, diecast restoration, polishing pot metal
Id: 0oYNgYZ1kU4
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 27min 20sec (1640 seconds)
Published: Fri Dec 09 2022
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