Gatepost (Gateros ) Plating kits

[Oddjob]

You using just the zinc plate or the zinc/nickel plate kit Dom?

[DomP]

You using just the zinc plate or the zinc/nickel plate kit Dom?

Zinc Nickel Ken, when they come out well the finish is excellent.

[DomP]

Once I've mastered these bolts I can move on to the gate posts.

[McCabe-Thiele (Ted)]

The Gatepost (TM) plating kits certainly look good - I should have bought one when I was rebuilding my 400 but took my casing bolts to a local plating firm instead for convenience.

Santa might visit with one in his sack who knows - if nothing else they sound rewarding to use.

[DomP]

The Gatepost (TM) plating kits certainly look good - I should have bought one when I was rebuilding my 400 but took my casing bolts to a local plating firm instead for convenience.

Santa might visit with one in his sack who knows - if nothing else they sound rewarding to use.

I bought mine as a 'science practical' to teach my 11 year old son😉 who might have managed 2 minutes in passing paying attention to it before Lego diverted his attention.  Its infuriating ant rewarding in equal measure currently (pun intended) but I will swing it to the latter eventually.

[Orcade-Ian]

I think that if you have a trustworthy source nearby as I used to have, then it might not be worth the effort.  Saying that, you don't want to be paying someone to clean a myriad of tiny parts prior to plating and that is more than half the work done.  If you slot things in between other jobs, then it doesn't become a boring chore.  Passivating is also important for longer term protection.
Also having an easily variable power source made all the difference to me but I've done quite a few of my own bikes plus many parts of other peoples.  I've also made quite a few special tools over the years and plated those too.

Ian

[AshimotoK0]

The Gatepost (TM) plating kits certainly look good - I should have bought one when I was rebuilding my 400 but took my casing bolts to a local plating firm instead for convenience.

Santa might visit with one in his sack who knows - if nothing else they sound rewarding to use.

I would avoid the power supply they sell though Ted. Motoclassics in Hants used to own Caswell Europe and they asked me to evaluate one... which I naturally took to bits as it seemed amazingly cheap. The internals left a lot to be desired from a safety point of view and I found that the current and voltage control wasn't very good.

I am just evaluating this module which has both voltage and constant current control. Will post my findings.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/374348983612

[DomP]

I bought the same Longwei controller they sell but cheaper on Ebay, you're right Ash it's fantastically Chinese and hard to set but better than guesswork.

[DomP]

Well this is frustrating, my dry acid pickle has lost strength already putting a halt to my days plating.

[kent400]

All good advice here on the subject of zinc plating. I've been doing that for quite a few years and usually parts larger than a couple of bolts. My method my differ from that used by others and frequently the parts are quite rusty.

Firstly the parts go in a vinegar pot, takes a few days to remove the rust and then on a rotary wire brush. Then in brick acid to remove any old zinc plating that remains, a rinse and then a polish with wire wool.

Electrolyte heat heated to 30c using a fish tank heater  while that heating up the part goes in caustic soda, rinse and into the brick cleaner. Another rinse and into the electrolyte

The anodes are in sleeves which prevents tiny pieces on zinc floating around the tank and the item being plated is moved around the tank. Once plated they are passivated.

This little lot took all morning to plate having previously ben cleaned and then the electrolyte gets filtered though two coffee filters ready for reuse.

[Oddjob]

I do the coffee filter thing as well, takes ages for it to drain through though. Used the vinegar trick before as well, does a decent job.

[DomP]

Thanks folks, I've had some good results this afternoon having dug out the phosphoric acid I used to clean the inside of my xs650 tank.  I think the point about coffee filters is quite relevant as I filtered my electrolyte today which resulted in a far better finish.  I'm using a fishtank heater and a small indoor water feature pump to move the solution around, putting the zinc and nickel in bags would further improve my results I think.