As part of the cleanup of a Veritas 350 I damaged the nickel plating trying to clean around the decal. The nickel is fairly thin and there are a few patches here and there on the fount we’re it is back to brass, but the damage I caused was so prominent and unnatural I had to do something about it. My penance was to start to learn how to electroplate. With it only being a select area I wanted to plate and wanting to preserve the decal I decided to brush plate. I have used electrolysis before for cleaning and it is a similar principle. Not being able to do a full immersion electrolysis clean to prepare the surface I just gave it a good clean with some acetone to remove any contaminants. After that I connected up the power source, setting the output to 4v as recommended on the nickel plating solution I bought. I found some joiners angle clamps useful for clamping on the rim of the fount to position it so I could work easily. Then I slowly immersed the absorbant nib in the solution and gently stroked the affected areas and repeated about a thousand times! It was a slow process taking the best part of two hours to brush in enough nickel so it looked presentable. Due to the way the electrolysis process works (as I understand it) it only took to the bare brass areas and where the original nickel was still in place the solution created a grey paint like residue that just wiped off afterwards. Next time I will try with a broader swab type brush rather than the finer nib I used this time, as I suspect it will give a smoother finish. The plating I managed to do has stood up to a gentle polish and whilst I have no doubt made all sorts of mistakes, the main thing is that I now have nickel where there was once brass showing. I am open to any pointers to help me improve this technique!
I know this technique and if you resize it to a bucket filled with nickel solution. You can replate all metal. With the "swapstick" you only apply where you brush on all metal as far as I know. But on the copper you see the best results.
I do fancy trying a full re-plate at some point. I assume that I would have to strip all the old nickel off to then do a complete re-plate. Or could it also work selectively on the areas where the brass is exposed and just patch those areas? Full immersion would finish off the decal, which would be a shame. I haven’t really got the time at the moment to recreate another Veritas decal!
I’m hoping someone has some more experience with brush plating as I think this could be really useful for restorations. I think some of the contents of my spares box may be subject to experimentation!
