Has anyone found a inexpensive way to do nickel plating at home?
Don,
A friend of mine bought a Caswell plating kit. I got to witness the plating of a part. It looked nice. He had roughly a 5 gal. kit. Here's a link the the Caswell site. I am no plating expert but would guess that hazardous chemicals and nasty fumes are an issue with some plating. This looked like a pretty good kit to me.
http://www.caswellplating.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=nickel+plating+kit
Verne
Caswell is the way to go. Its not real cheap though. They have excellent instructions and the results are good if you spend the time to prepare the part for plating. I did a radiator neck the 4 hub caps, the steering box etc. with the smallest kit. I used the electroplating kit.
I did the spark and throttle rods for the '13 roadster I'm working on, because I didn't want to disassemble the steering column assembly. I used a Caswell kit, and so far I'm pretty impressed with it.
Larry, did you prep and plate the rods and the gear case? Did you suspend just that end into the soln? Would like to see some pictures if possible. I am contemplating doing the same with a 13 steering column.
I have a radiator shell that needs replateing and a few small items. I'm not sure if the cost of the kit would be a savings over just having it done...anybody have an idea on this ???
Caswell Plating sells very good products and are very responsive if you have any questions. Mr. Caswell responds to most questions directly, before or after the sale.
They also sell an amazing product for sealing gas tanks called Phenol Novolak. Best product I've ever used.