Rainy day so used the Caswell kit to re-plate the dust caps for the Autowa.

Set up is easy, in a glass jar, fix the anode to the side with clothespin, then pour in the solution. Heat is best, said to preheat in microwave to 140 and dip the parts in 140 water too, but the wife would not like me in the kitchen, so my heat source was a hair dryer,...seemed to be ok for making the solution warm enough.




The dust caps to re-plate were originals, with some good nickle still on them, one was mostly brass, so I polished that one on the buffer with red rouge, then cleaned the parts in laq thinner.



The then immerse the part in the solution. The cathode alligator clip is on the part. Used a setup to hold the part for the process. Time is about 5 minutes or 2 or 3 rock and roll songs that were on the desk radio

Found out that the polished brass one plated up really nice and bright.



Here is the first try out of the jar, this dust cap was highly polished brass.



Then tried the ones with nickel plate on them, but not happy with that result, the new plate seemed dull and didn't cover well.



So back to the buffing wheel, and took the others back to brass, removing what original nickel that was there.



So my results were actually very nice with this set up. Easy to do, costs less than $50 and will plate a lot more little parts. I just returned the solution back into the storage container. If you have little parts of brass that need shiny nickel this process is pretty good.

The old dust cap on the Autowa, like this better than the new repop, which are flat topped in shape and too shiny for my old car!

Didn't upload the final result!

Here it is.

A bit better pic, last one out of focus some.

Dan;
Where did you find the kit?

Richard

The first picture of the box shows the contact info for Caswell

Thought you might have got it locally

I wonder if you reversed the anode/cathode connection if it would have de-plated the old nickel plated ones? Then it would have been easier to polish the original brass before replating.

Nope, the solution with the kit is for nickle deposit only.

For electrolysis stripping you need acid.

Nickle can be stripped with a 50-50 solution of sulfuric acid and water at room temp....but didn't want to do that. Buffing was fast,and the goal was not a perfect plate, simply to make the parts look best but still with patina...for its on an old Ford don't you see