Letter 0001

Electroplating Skulls and Organic Materials

Can you suggest sources of info on electroplating or bronzing organic material such as animal skulls?

[name removed for privacy due to age of posting]

Besides the electroplating societies (www.nasf.org) and links you might find from finishing.com, and electroplating texts, I can tell you quickly what my experience has been for this kind of work. 1) I always used "other people's" electroplating facilities. That is, it was a hobby for me, so I used a plating tank during lunchtime or whatever. If you have an electroplating facility available, that's great. If you are thinking of setting up your own tanks, it's possible, but in today's world, it means wastewater, waste sludge, permits, etc. 2) I never plated big stuff, but for the nuts and berries and leaves I fooled with, I used a silver conductive paint. I think it was called Electrodag or something. I think you might be able to airbrush the paint onto the subject. 3) It requires a little technique for starting the plating strike with low current and many contact points so you don't burn off the silver paint. 4) The biggest problem, I think, that you need to overcome with organic material is sealing the thing so plating solutions are not absorbed during immersion. It ruins the job when you have tiny points of bleedout which corrodes and destroys the look. You might try multiple dips or sprays of a wax, then paint the wax and plate. So watch out for hot solutions which will expand the trapped air. (I know a person who plated a banana and it blew up in his desk, so remove the brain before plating skulls.) Or how about making a mold of the skull, then a reverse of plaster, then plate that? 5) Ted Mooney is getting a copy of this letter. He told me that they electroplate orchids somewhere in the Far East. Those are the people you want to talk to! 6) Good Luck, and send me a photo of your work when it's done. I may want one for my house in Vail, if I ever get a house in Vail. 7) If I did or did not help, I would be glad to try again. Tom Pullizzi platronica.com Falls Township, PA

I was just looking at the Q&A on this topic and can tell you what is done to finish non-conductors in the (vinyl) record industry and in our business (electroforming coaxial cable devices).

In vinyl record production (I did this years ago) an acetate master is cleaned, sensitized, then sprayed with a two component silver compound which lays down a very thin coating of pure silver. This silver is the conductor on which nickel is then plated. When plating is done the acetate is peeled off, the silver is stripped, and you have a negative image from which to press additional records or from which to make "Mothers" from which to make additional pressing plates, ad infinitum. Each plating cycle introduces more micro defects which show up as hiss, etc. so there is a limit as to how far you can go.

In our current process, a shape is injection molded with special wax, then cleaned, sensitized, and sprayed with the same silver spray system as above. Then we copper plate to a thickness of 10-20 mils. The wax is evacuated and the remaining shape (a precision electrical cable/connector assembly) is trimmed to spec and undergoes final test/assembly.

Bill Vins microwave & cable assemblies Mesa (what a place-a), Arizona

There was a reference to plating orchids. I wondered if this was a put-on, this is mighty close to gilding the lily.

Ward Wilson, P.E.
aeronautical & navigation
Louisville, Kentucky

Ted Mooney, P.E. 
finishing.com
Brick, NJ

 

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