- Boxes by Neal
Transcription
- Boxes by Neal
Electroplating The rich look of copper has always intrigued me. From the beginning, my desire was for the boxes to be copper. After trying several processes such as patinas, electroless dips, and others, it became clear to me that the boxes would have to be electroplated to get that great copper look - - a look that would last many years, and take on beautiful soft brown patinas naturally. Setting up for electroplating is neither easy nor inexpensive, but well worth the cost and effort. It’s not magic. If you have the proper equipment, chemicals, and follow the rules, you can indeed get excellent results. In this chapter we will take a good look at the setup, and tell you exactly what to do. This is my homemade system. It consist of four commercial tanks with tops. You can use almost any plastic, rubber, or glass container to plate. The choice was to spent the money for these tanks after trying other containers. They were heavy duty, tough, had great tops, and were designed for chemical use. Each tank will hold 3 gallons of chemical. The tanks are 6 inches by 12 inches, 12 inches deep. That will accommodate several boxes at a time, a small glass panel, or one large box. The tanks are mounted in a substantial frame that was made in my shop. They are located in front or my wash out sink which makes fresh water rinse easy. They afford the ability to plate copper and nickel. A power source is required for electroplating. The power supply shown would be able to plate far more at a time than will ever be needed. A good power supply is an absolute must if you are to get good results. This one has digital meters making setting current/voltage easy. In addition to containers and a power source you will need the following materials: 1> Plating chemicals (only use safe acid based plating chemicals). 2> Cleaning chemicals designed for electro-cleaning. 3> Copper anodes and stainless steel anodes. 4> Hook up cables. The chemicals and anodes for this plating setup come from Dalmar Plating in Ft. Myers, Fl. They also have power supplies and containers for small plating jobs. They are a great, reliable source. Website: www.dalmarplating.com. Now let’s plate two boxes. You cannot plate metal unless it is perfectly clean. In this case, free from flux, oil, dirt, or any residue. You can use hot water if you are using a water soluble flux like the Canfield Blue Flux. Some chemical cleaners can be used, but no acid based bright dip. My experience with them is that they turn the solder black and plating would be impossible. Some instructions suggest using a bright dip for cleaning and pre-plate conditioning. That may work for traditional metal plating, but it doesn't work well on solder. All that is necessary is to clean the box with hot water prior to using the Dalmar electroclean solution. The sooner you plate after finishing your box the better your plating will be. Solder accumulates oxidation over time, and that will cause problems for plating. If oxidation occurs, use a chemical cleaner to remove the residue. The need for proper cleaning cannot be over stressed. Tank #1 contains the Dalmar Electro-clean solution. It is used with a stainless steel anode. The anode is placed into the solution with a wire connected to it. You can see the red alligator clip connected to the wire and the positive terminal of the power supply. The holding racks for the boxes was shop made in my studio. They are simple. A brass bar on the bottom, brass rod on the top, and insulated wire connecting the bottom bar and top rod (Insulated wire because you don’t want to plate anything but the box.) The black alligator clip will connect to the top brass rod after lowering the box into the tank. That black lead connects to the negative terminal on the power supply. The power supply is off until we are ready to plate. The anode must not come in contact with the box or its holder. The box is now in the clean solution and the power supply is on. Dalmar suggest .5 amps for cleaning. Leave the box in the clean tank from 30 sec to 1 minute. For a box like this one about 3 - 4 volts will produce a current flow of .5 amps. The voltage required to result in a current flow of .5 amp will change depending on the metal surface being cleaned. This power supply allows for adjusting both voltage and current so the relationship between voltage setting for the desired .5 amp draw can be adjusted. If your power supply only adjusts current, and has a set voltage, just set it to .5 amps. Digital meters on a power supply are much easier to accurately and quickly read. A good, well filtered power supply is a must for plating and necessary if Glass Box immersed in the you plan to do electro-forming. Electro-forming is a Electro-clean tank (above) great way to create unique parts for the projects. The process allows you to take an object (plastic, stone, leafs, almost anything) and coat the object with a conductive substance. That allows you to use your Conductive Coating plating system to accumulate metals on the object. from Dalmar See the Dalmar site for more info in Electro-forming and the conductive coating mentioned before. The box has been removed from the clean tank and is now being rinsed in hot water at the sink. Before the sink was installed, a rinse tank was used, which works fine. If you use a rinse tank you should replace the water on a regular basis, for the water becomes contaminated from rinsing, thus the plating quality seems to go down. If you used a rinse tank you could use a small emersion heater to heat the water. In a tank some aquarium heaters (quartz) might work fine. Hot water seems to work much better for a rinse. Rinse between clean and copper tanks so you do not contaminate your copper plating solution. Dragging a chemical from one tank to another will spoil your plating quality, also. Nice and clean and ready for the copper tank. The read alligator clamp will go on the copper anode attached to the copper wire you see extending down into the solution. The black lead attaches to that box. The box will stay in the copper tank about 2 - 3 minutes with a small voltage and current. I use .5 volts to draw .5 amps. It is suggested that 1/10 of an amp per square inch of metal surface to be plated be used. Too little will produce poor plating and too much will produce an ugly pinkish finish. Time and current matter. The longer you stay in the copper tank the thicker the copper layer. You could use a lower current and more time, but remember that the solution is acid based. You risk etching the glass at some point. Using these settings has caused no etching problems, just nice plating. The Dalmar plating solution is a weak acid based chemical that is unlikely to etch glass very quickly. The box completely submerged in the copper plating solution. Dalmar makes a copper brighter. Add about an ounce every 3 months or so depending on usage. If your plating starts looking dull, that might be the answer. Out of the copper plating tank and ready for a hot water rinse. Move quickly here. After a good hot water rinse dry the box thoroughly. While wet it starts to tarnish quickly so dry it off immediately. Hot water facilitates easier drying. Dalmar offers a tarnish inhibitor that will certainly help with this problem. Nothing like a nice hot bath! Dry it thoroughly! A paper shop towel works great and can be reused several times after they dry. No lent either. After the final hot water rinse, and as soon as the box has been dried, give it a good coat of a wax based finishing polish. This will protect your box from tarnish and give it a bright copper finish. Use a soft terry towel for this step. The final step is to put on a good coating of a microcrystalline wax. But, wax is wax and it will need to be repeated in time. Finished boxes with a great copper plated finish that will last many years, and become more beautiful as time passes. Plating probably sets my work apart from others more than anything else. If you use the proper materials and procedures you can get good plating results. Do consider visiting the Dalmar website and read the educational material they have provided. Each plating setup will be different. Plating jewelry will require a different setup from plating a large piece of stained glass. However, the process and principals remain the same. The results are well worth the cost and effort. “Thank You Dalmar” for making small plating operations possible. Copyright © 2013 Neal Hearn