Caswell Plating

[grannyknot]

Ha,  I was thinking of all the sperm men standing around and waiting to deploy, might be a different flick.

[Captain Obvious]

You are absolutely right!! I thought of it this afternoon while walking around at the junkyard, but couldn't post until now.

Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid To Ask

Remember Tony Randall and Burt Reynolds in that? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM3fglmaRrA

 

Edited June 15, 2018 by Captain Obvious

[Patcon]

I did some more plating today.

I did not realize that the ends of the air filter bolts were brazed on. It might be hard to see in this photo

The color and finish is pretty good on these but I don't like how the pitting showed up on the butterflys. I make take these back down and do some sanding on them to minimize the pitting. I am still running pretty high currents right now. So I have ordered some chemical and am going to try to reduce the resistance across the tank some on my next plating day.

[Patcon]

So I got some post plating blistering after some of my last plating. It didn't show up for about a week.

Some causes I found:

Too much brightener

Organics in the plating bath

Bad part prep

My bath had gotten kind of cloudy and I am sure I get a lot of "drag out" from my degreaser and pickle tank, so I decided to charcoal filter it. Seanc on the Caswell forum suggested a fridge filter hooked to the aquarium pump. Works great!

Now the brass end is supposed to be installed in the reverse way. Shank in and threads out, but I tapped the end of the filter and left the shank out to attach to the hose.

45 minutes later

Now the only downside is this will remove any brightener from the bath. Seanc said in some other posts on the Caswell forum that he doesn't even use brightener. That he gets better results with out it. So we will see how my next plating session goes and whether I can get shiny plate with out the brightener

[Captain Obvious]

That's a cool idea. I remember we talked about activated charcoal and it's application in the plating realm, but I never thought it could be a simple as a fridge filter!

[Patcon]

42 minutes ago, Captain Obvious said:

That's a cool idea. I remember we talked about activated charcoal and it's application in the plating realm, but I never thought it could be a simple as a fridge filter!

I thought so too. My favorite part was that it required so little effort on my part. Set it and come back in an hour.

I am trying to get as much of my plating this way as possible

[Captain Obvious]

So you had mentioned before that agitating the liquid in the tanks was advantageous as well. Are you going to circulate the fluid through the filter at the same time you are plating a workpiece? Or clean the tanks first and then plate a batch?

[Patcon]

There was a guy on you tube that ran a filter full time on his bath. He had a decent sized pump under his bench and like a 10 gallon tank. I tried to ask him on you tube, what kind of filter he was running. I assume is was a particulate filter, but I don't know what micron. I wouldn't run the charcoal filter full time. It would be nice to run a different pump setup. Caswell sells a little giant chemical pump, but I think it's overkill for my little tank and it's expensive. Maybe one day...

For now, I will finish cleaning the tank. There is a little bit of debris in the bottom of the tank and I will filter that out through coffee filters. Then I will try to plate something. We'll see how it goes. It will be interesting to see if I can get a bright zinc plate without adding brightener. Might try it this coming weekend if it doesn't monsoon again...

[Patcon]

Tried to plate last weekend but my tank heater was dead. So I got another one and did some plating this weekend. One thing I did was plate some studs on a booster. This part is fully painted except for the studs

Wired up

Suspended right at the top of the tank

Turned out pretty decent. I am unsure why the ends of the studs didn't really plate. It will be ok, since these studs are under the dash

 

 

[Patcon]

This little part had blistered on my and I replated it. I will check it in a week or so and make sure it doesn't blister

Looks good today, we'll see. Hopefully filtering the tank eliminated the issue

[Nat0z]

Thread necro! 

Hey guys any updates on this wonderful work/thread. I started out @ home brew level then upscaled. No yellow yet but about to get it happening.

Ive found 'low & slow' is tedious and painful and more so inconsistent. Found out last night that my hunch is spot on by achieving much better & brighter results straight from the zinc tank. 

Huge amps and huge volts (ill discust you all shortly!). 

Wave it around in solution (manual agitation). Nothing else keeping it submerged, maybe 4-5 dips swishing about 3-5 seconds each. And kapow a nice almost grey-blue film with immediate irredecense. How long and exactly how much current voltage is used depends on how tricky the part shape is and how big. Ie swaybar mount brackets would not cover, no matter what, internally or in the back-bends. 

Pump up the juice, i get an awesome result and only in a minute or two! 

Now im not sure why this is, bath resistance/conductivity or temp etc but it works and its the easiest and most consistant results i can attain. 

I just need to sort out the chromating, local supplier is opposite end of town. But i am now confident after a rinse these will chromate beautifully with all the rainbows as they are already there! 

On youtube some use alot of agitation, other very little, ie air pump. Others come out shiny and reflective straight outta the bath. Eveything ive read, watched and tried to comprehend say the opposite, but my results dont back it up. 

I dont believe spending the 400+$ on the local kit (non caswell) is worth it. But it im not going to change if its not neccesary, i will if it is the reason, ie no problems 30$ of vinegar and salt down the drain.

I feel once i get the chromate passivate added it may allow even less attention to detail, as ive found so far the low n slow routine was very sensitive to finger prints, now im not as careful, sure to still use gloves and wire up without touching. A bead blast, etch, rinse and plate is all i do, then rinse dip & dry. 

I expect there to be another 3 more steps with chromating, and how you dry them is quite important for the finish. 

Happy to discuss more re my findings and share notes! 

Cheers nathan

Edited May 25, 2020 by Nat0z
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[KenFirch]

I've been lurking on the Caswell thread for months, and finally pulled the trigger and bought the 1.5 gallon system.  Built a cabinet: 2 sheets of plywood and sheet of poly from Home Depot, removable casters and power supply from Amazon, and Crockpot from Costco.  Didn't want it any longer than 6 feet long, and wanted a fold down top so it's not a wasted space and I can also use it to work on whatever.  Rustoleum Royal Blue paint looks surprisingly like the color of my 240Z block. 🤷‍♂️   Just starting off with small pieces and fasteners as I work on various stuff.  So far, some success, some so so.  Need more practice to get the routine down.  Nice to be able to learn from others experiences.