I would like to ask if any one here has used one of the home Chroming brush on kits? I have a bowlfire bowl that could do with some TLC and would like to have a go at chroming some wire guards instead of trying to spray paint them. Sending off for professional dip chroming is too expensive and yes the home kits are a little pricey with the lowest on Ebay being around £40. I know the results won't be as good as professional chroming but are these kits a waste of time for lamp parts? Thanks, Steve
I have watched a youtube clip on the brush chroming kit and the chap chromed a coin by just brushing on a solution. It looked like there was a wire clipped to the coin? It seemed quite an easy process? Steve.
Nickel plating can be successful but the job is all in the preparation of the item to be plated i.e. very clean , rust free & polished , any plating costs money mainly due as i said to the prep work, have a look on Youtube for posts on the subject someone somewhere must have done a how too video Stu . Good luck & keep us all posted
That what I'm worried about Stu, preparing a bowlfire bowl would be a right challenge. I was hoping to just touch up some bare brass areas and see if the pitting would kind of get covered over? I'm not after perfect chroming by any means just to make things a bit more pretty? Steve.
Well I went ahead and ordered one of these kits... http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Replica-Chrome-Brush-Plating-Kit-for-Bike-Car-Boat-/251200554441?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item3a7cb845c9 I will report back on any success or not as the case may be? Steve.
Well after doing a bit of research I cancelled my order for the brush kit and instead ordered a copper and chrome tank plating kit. The reason being is that the copper builds a foundation which can be buffed and polished and to some extent conceals pitting and damage which then is able to take the chrome finish. When it arrives I will attempt to plate three parts, the bowl, the guard and the handle to bowl top bracket. Will let you see how I get on in a couple of days. Steve.
Just took some before pics of the bowl and guard. Haven't got a clue how the plating will turn out but it should be fun! Steve.
I had a similar quote each for two Aladdin lamp fonts... I also had several quotes for considerably more so will be watching with interest.
Basic it is the reverse electrolyse cleaning. When you switch the anode and cathode,so the current moves the other way, and you put a metal solution in the water it would work. I have a set that works on a battery and sponge somewhere. The sponge is soaked with the solution and the battery provides the current. Edit: here is a Dutch galvaniseer link. looking at the pictures I guess the stuff itself comes from Germany. Conrad has a set too. and another one. Search on electro plating diy and you will find a whole new world of possibilities.
Well the plating kit just arrived If the world doesn't end I will try it out tomorrow. I need to get some distilled/de-ionized water first. Steve.
Update: Well I have had a go a plating and have had mixed results. First I tried a small piece, the handle to bowl bracket. I polished the part but could have done better and chromed it. The result was OK ish. The trick is getting the correct current/voltage through the electrolyte mix. My first effort went on too fast and thick and has sort of a wavy effect but is to all intents and purposes chromed! With practice and much better preparation I believe a small part can look very nice and I may strip and try again? Then I tried the bowl. My plan was to plate with copper first and use that as a filler to cover all the imperfections and then buff to a shine. Well I tried plating with copper but found it very difficult to get the electric flow right. It tended to plate far too quickly and coarsely near to where I placed the lumps of copper in the electrolyte mix that make the anodes. Basicly the copper did not stick and did not fill the pitting so unless I did something very wrong I think the copper plating kit is not needed. I then tried to chrome plate the bowl once I had removed all the copper crud and it looked very much like the bowl in my picture with pitted chrome, copper and brass all showing. Well I wasn't expecting much after the copper run but I was surprised to find the bowl did plate fairly easily with the chrome! I should have taken a picture but didn't! The bowl comes out the plating solution not all shiny, you have to polish to get the shine. Well after a buff it looked OK. I say OK in the fact it was completely chromed BUT the finish was poor and every imperfection, pit, scratch and scuff showed through. Well heartened that the chroming worked but my preparation sucks I set about the bowl with the buffing wheel and think I pressed a little too hard as the chrome sort of gave way in the middle in a big sheet!! I wasn't too sad as this was my inspiration to start all over and totally strip down the bowl to bare metal. Tonight I have it stripped but there are still patches of original copper plate over the brass bowl which is a git to remove. I would say 50 % is brass and 50% is copper. I got up to 1200 wet and dry and gave it a good buff on the wheel. There are still scratches from the wet and dry so I may have to get some finer grit paper and get a mirror finish before I re-plate? So far I have learned that preparation is absolutely the key. A high mirror surface is needed on the piece being plated. Once I try again I will update with some pictures. Steve.
Good on ya for having a go Steve Would love to see a pictorial re-run with as many pics as your prepared to share with us
Apologies if I'm teaching my grandmother to suck eggs, and I'll get to the point eventually, but the flow of current through a liquid (i.e. the process of electrolysis) is due to the movement of charged particles called ions, Basically, there are two types of ion - positive ions and negative ions. They're charged (i.e. positive or negative) because they're either short of electrons or have extra electrons. Since electrons have a negative charge, atoms that are short of an electron will be positively charged i.e. positive ions. Conversely, atoms that have an extra electron will be negatively charged i.e. negative ions. In simple terms, negative ions are produced at the cathode (because you've connected that to the negative side of the electricity supply) and these travel through the liquid to the anode because that's positive - you connected it to the positive side of the electricity supply. Conversely, positive ions produced at the anode will travel through the liquid to the cathode. Metal ions are always positive so they are produced at the anode and travel to the cathode. Now, all these ions 'want' to do is discharge themselves - positive ions want to gain an electron and become a neutral atom again; negative ions want to lose the extra electron and become a neutral atom again. They do this by travelling by the shortest path to the electrode with the opposite charge which is exactly what has happened here. It's as simple as that. We had someone over at CCS (I think it was) asking if he used an old rusty knackered saw as a cathode, would electrolysis restore his saw to as-new condition. To do that, the saw would have had to remember what it was like when new and somehow be able to tell the iron ions where they were to go. Otherwise, the electrolysis bath would have had to be able to see back in time to what the saw was like when new. To be honest, I wouldn't bother to go to the time, trouble and expense of trying to recover a knackered Tilley or Bialaddin reflector. I'd either polish it back to base metal and call it good, or get a better replacement - they're not exactly rare.
Yes the bowl looks nice all polished up but I like things looking original. I agree the plating kit is quite expensive but it can plate loads of stuff before the nickel anodes are spent. The hardest part and most time consuming is getting the metal polished perfect, something I have always had problems with with my finishing on all matter of things, I just have no patience and skip parts of a process thinking 'that will do' and invariably it comes back to bite me! But I learn!! The problem I think is that a fire bowl bowl for a DIYer is quite a large piece to plate. The electrolyte chemicals when mixed only give you 5 litres to play with and this is not enough to cover a bowl with enough room to place the nickle or copper anodes a decent distance away to avoid over-plating at the shortest distance between anode and cathode. A better way would be to buy enough chemicals to make up at least 10 litres of electrolyte. The tank I have been using is an 11 litre storage box from B&Q. To get enough electrolyte to just cover the bowl I diluted the mix with more water, about 2 litres extra. All will become clear when I add pictures. I'm planning to re-plate tomorrow so will update then. Steve.
I had another go a plating today and again mixed results but overall good. There was again preparation issues as when polishing the bowl there was copper plate over the brass. I should have removed this plate as the chroming over this is not as good over polished brass. The brass still had scratches which could be removed with more work but again I could not wait and went ahead. The brass was mirror polished but with scratches. These again showed through the chrome. The rest of the brass sections was excellent with professional looking chroming!! 8) The copper sections chromed OK and are indeed shiny but no where near as good as mirror polished brass. Overall the actual plating process is very easy and takes about 30 minutes. If the whole bowl could be taken back to brass and be flawlessly polished you would end up with a perfect chrome job. Here is the bowl polished after a soak and clean... Here it is in the tank and with the centre anode placed in the middle... Here is the difference between the brass and copper plating surfaces when plated. It looks worse than it is in this pic and lighting but demonstrates the difference well... Here is a close up of the bowl and at a distance... Overall it looks quite good and the pics do it no justice but like I say you could with better prep get it looking like brand new. Looking at the last pic you can clearly see the dull patches that were copper below the plate. These patches are very shiny but not as much as the brass, the way the light catches the patches makes it look very dull but they are not too bad with the eye. One problem I did notice was I had the bowl in the solution shiny side up and I think particles of crud settle in the chrome at the bottom of the bowl as the finish is rough where the chrome has plated over the tiny bits of grit or particles? Next time I would plate the bowl the other way up to avoid this settling. I suspect dangling the bowl side on in a deep tank would work the best? Conclusion... Plating the bowl was much easier than small parts. Agitation of the solution and keeping the bowl moving to prevent build up of course chrome is essential. In my pic of the tank I had an anode in each corner and in the middle. If you keep the bowl in one position the part of the bowl nearest to the anodes goes rough and dull and plates far too much. Twisting the bowl by hand prevented this. If you want to get good results you can with the home kit and I have now plated a bowl twice and the Nickel anodes have hardly reduced so lots of bowls could be chromed. Overall a success Steve.
Steve, it looks good to me but there is probably no chance of me trying to do bits of KL80 harp frame - no patience for any preparation needed. Will you risk lighting up the lamp?
Well done Steve I used to camp at Rickmansworth Lido, as it was called 60 years ago (near where you are). I think that it was old gravel pits that turned into lakes and my father took us there at the start of the school summer holidays and left my Mum and us there for six weeks, only coming back at weekends as he had to go back to work. What a load of memories that brings back. Fishing, swimming and cooking on Primus and lighting by Tilley and all in an old WW1 bell tent. However, I drift from the thread, sorry Your re-chroming project results look good to me, and as they say, "practice makes perfect" All the best - Steve.
I wonder if the Lido as you remember is now the Rickmansworth Aquadrome? These are 3 gravel pits, Stockers Lake, Bury Lake and Batchworth Lake and I believe the gravel was used in the old Wembly stadium? I vaguely remember going to a Lido in Ryslip in the late 70's early 80's when I was a nipper by which time the place was in decline but I believe renovation has begun? Your memories sound excellent and what life should be like when growing up. A bit like my memories, maybe the last generation to have relative freedom? I didn't have a lamp then though like you Steve.
Steve, This is an excellent post with invaluable information. Thanks for being so detailed with your progress throughout. It is very helpful to those of us contemplating home plating. I admire your perseverance with this project. Your BF restorations looks great especially with the newly chromed reflector. You may find that the shiny one will be more efficient in radiating the heat and you'll feel warmer. Dan
Very nice job, a thought on the electroplating and current regulation issue. Assuming a 12 Volt Auto type battery was used, the current can be regulated by placing a 12V globe in series with the negative or positive lead. If more current is required then use a higher wattage globe, or parallel another of the same type, or if less current required, use a lower wattage globe. (Hmmm The dashboard of the family car could start looking dark at night.)
