Caswell Plating

[Patcon]

7 hours ago, madkaw said:

I just sent some out!

My first plater sucked so I found another one . These folks look like they did better . Can’t wait to see the stuff in person . Quick turn around too! 
 

Who did you use?

[madkaw]

4 hours ago, Patcon said:

Who did you use?

Industrial Plating Inc

Lafayette Indiana .

This is a pic they sent so I haven’t seen the stuff in person . 
Here’s a pic of what I sent them from my last plater

[Patcon]

So I have an update. My plating tank was a clear brown color. I decided to try to make a new solution using ZnCl. I mixed up a tank of that and tried to plate something without success. So I decided I would just renew my tank chemicals. I placed an order with Caswell and bought two 1.5 gallon kits. All mixed up it was about 4 gallons. My current requirements in my old solution had gotten pretty high. I assume this is from me having filtered out some of the solution components when I filtered my tank. The new solution is quite cloudy. So noticeably different. IT also plates really well. I added a cap and a half of brightener in my 4g tank and was turning out pretty nice plate at 0.17-0.19 A/squ in.

I also added several rinse buckets with a gallon of distilled in each.

One after the degreaser

One after the pickle

One after the plating tank and one after the blue chromate.

I also added heaters in both chromate tanks set to about 80d F

[Namerow]

What's your power supply?

[Patcon]

10Amp

I have a larger one but haven't used it yet

[Patcon]

I have been doing some plating while working on other things. These distributor clamps were plated yesterday. I plated them and then baked them for 4 hours to reduce any embrittlement.

But after plating they blistered. So they will have to be redone. I suspect this is from too much brightener.

 

[Patcon]

I plated the vacuum advance the other weekend

I wired it and then put the hose on it to keep the liquid out. I plugged the advance port

It turned out pretty nice for as crusty as it was. What was interesting was when it was in the tank one side would get really shiny but the other got dark. Rotate the piece and the discolorations would move. So at the very end I just wired the negative directly to the wire coming off the part and held it in the tank by hand. I rotated the part slowly and all the plate brightened up. It was really cool to watch. So this would tend to support barrel plating as giving the best finish results...

[Patcon]

I have few questions

When people are getting the headlight buckets plated, are you leaving the plastics for the adjuster screws in the buckets?

Also I have seen where vendors are selling those plastic piece for the adjuster screws nut they don't have the plastic tube protector. Does anybody know of a source for those?

Also when people are plating the latch mechanism from the edge of the passenger doors. Are you just cleaning them the best you can and plating them or are you disassembling them to some level?

 

[ETI4K]

I would suggest that if you are plating for corrosion resistance, remove all removable parts.  

It's a different problem with assemblies that are riveted or staked.  How do you replace the rivets or restake something without tooling?  I suppose you could always make them. 

If you plate the door latch as an assembly, I suspect you'll get little protection for your effort.  

[Patcon]

1 hour ago, ETI4K said:

I would suggest that if you are plating for corrosion resistance, remove all removable parts.  

It's a different problem with assemblies that are riveted or staked.  How do you replace the rivets or restake something without tooling?  I suppose you could always make them. 

If you plate the door latch as an assembly, I suspect you'll get little protection for your effort.  

I agree in principle but I know those plastic pieces aren't going to come out whole. They're too brittle. That means I would have to have replacements for the three pairs of headlights I am redoing. Also since I can't find the special rubber caps for the adjustment screws, the hardware will be exposed to the debris and water coming off the front tires. I don't think that is a good idea either for a long term solution. I was hoping someone would have a source or an elegant solution...

[grannyknot]

I can't find my pics now but in the past I bought a box of square white plastic screw anchors then removed the stock anchors and filed the round holes to a square and popped in the new inserts.  Then a 2"piece of 1/2" dia shrink tube, you want to use a fine tip butane torch or even a match will work, slip the shrink tube over the anchor and heat up the area just covering the anchor.  You want most of the tube unshrunk so the adjustment screw can travel, then the last thing is to heat up the very end and pinch in hard until it seals up and is water proof.

The square white anchors I used were large enough to accommodate the stock M6 adjustment screw, the pic below is just something I lifted from the net.

 

[grannyknot]

As for the plastic parts that can't be removed, the chemicals they are using to remove rust at the platers can be hard on the surface of the plastic so if you do have to send in those kind of parts then it is best to remove all the rust using electrolysis or citric acid before you send them in so the part doesn't have to sit in the acid for too long.

You can see in the pics the 2 pcs to the left the plastic wasn't damaged at all but the plastic rear hatch wedge has turn white and rough from the acid.

Charles, aren't you still plating your own hardware?