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Nickel plated my first phonograph part, a needle cup lid. Didn't do much surface prep, just cleaned off the gunk with PB Blaster and steel wool, polished it up a little, then washed it in dish soap and water.

The plating solution I made became contaminated with chromium from the alligator clip so it is a bit dark, still very happy with the result!

Cliff

At least on the picture it looks age-appropriate, not like a shiny new nickel. Where did you get your plating solution and electrodes from?

Thanks for sharing
Andreas

Cliff,

I am not even remotely an expert, but from your photo the finished product looks very good.

I can imagine there may be a few people who are curious what you used for plating solution/electrodes.

Regards,

David

Add me to the list of those impressed. This is incredible.

What was the secret sauce, and what voltage?

VanEpsFan1914 wrote:Add me to the list of those impressed. This is incredible.

What was the secret sauce, and what voltage?

Secret sauce = distilled white vinegar with some salt added to increase conductivity. To create the anodizing solution, I used 22.5 volts dc from my battery eliminator and ran current between 2 nickel anodes suspended in the vinegar. When the vinegar turned green, I replaced the nickel anode on the negative side with the needle cup lid and let it cook at 4.5 volts for about 2 hours, with the positive side still connected to a nickel anode. All this in a 1 quart bowl. I've got a 2 gallon glass jar coming soon to plate bigger parts. Also, gotta spend more time preparing the surface of the piece to be plated to get a 'new' looking piece.

It was as simple as it sounds. Look on YouTube for DIY NICKEL PLATING.

Thanks for the "recipe!" I haven't made a strong enough acetate solution and that's why mine takes forever.

Nice job!

I followed the same YouTube route as you did. I use an old charger with 12v 1 amp output. Small parts are plated in 30-60 seconds. This ring took about 90 seconds.

It is so much easier than I expected, so i replated almost everything.