Nickel Plating Solution Recipe Needed!

A. A Watts nickel formulation will give you a smooth matte plate:
40-8-6 ounces per gallon of nickel sulphate, nickel chloride, boric acid, respectively; pH 4.0.

It may depend on what you mean by "smooth": bright? leveled? reflective? Recipes are proprietary, and I don't know of anyone who would give this to you. You can buy or get samples from the major supply houses.

A. Hi Rachel. The formula Tom gave you gives a matte rather than bright plate, as he said; but you can buff it to brightness if you wish as they did in the old days. .

To get bright nickel plating 'as deposited' (without subsequent buffing) requires a "carrier", a "brightener", an "auxiliary brightener" and a "wetting agent". If your interest in that is primarily academic/hobbyist rather than production-oriented, then old fashioned non-proprietary nickel addition agents are well explained in the nickel plating chapter of ASM Metals Handbook, Vol. 5 [affil link on Amazon or AbeBooks ].

Those older addition agents include saccharin or paratoluene as the carrier; Thiourea [on eBay or Amazon] or reduced fuchsin as the brightener; sodium allyl sulfonate or 1,4-butyne diol as the auxiliary brightener; and sodium lauryl sulphate as the wetter/anti-pit agent. Good luck.

Considering the complexity of formulating addition agents though, few plating shops actually try to mix their own. They either buy the mixes from a supplier or they just plate the nickel dull/matte or semi-bright, then polish/buff it to a luster (which is what was done years ago before these addition agent systems were developed :-)

Good luck!

The person that invents a way will be in the same good position as in finding a genie in a lamp. But the lamp was probably plated with sulphate nickel (how would you release the genie if you didn't have to polish once in a while?).

A. About 20-30 amperes per square foot, average.

Tom, you know this topic better than me, but I thought 40 ASF was the right current density for bright Watts Nickel?

Hi, Rachel,
It looks like you might be sort of winging it without a plating book or hands-on guidance. If so, please see if your library can offer one of our recommended "must-have" books.

I hope I'm not reading things wrong and offending you, but while this forum is good at answering specific questions, as Tom answered with the formula for Watt's Nickel, it's not an efficient way to introduce most people to electroplating because it's always going to bounce around whereas books are "tutorial", proceeding from scratch to deep knowledge over the course of a hundred pages, and web postings tend to either be repetitive to a maddening degree or over our heads. Plus, other readers may wrongly assume they can just jump in without safety & environmental hazards when they go unmentioned in threads like this (as evidenced by the first 7 entries)-- but they are prominently mentioned in most books. Good luck!

I am happy that you are plating better. Sorry you don't like the service.

Dear Rachel:

We're very happy for your success, since sharing info is the very purpose of this forum! --please share your recipe for "the brightest and finest finish" .

But yes, we refer people to books for efficient tutorial learning and to increase the likelihood that they understand the hazards and appropriate safety protocols. In my own town recently a hobbyist killed himself right at his kitchen table with a cyanide copper plating solution, and put the responding police officer in the hospital ... so I don't like to jump right in to offering "recipes" without also mentioning safety and ecological disposal.

Electroplating involves haz-mat chemicals. Chromium plating solution and formaldehyde addition agents for nickel plating are known carcinogens; the cyanide required in many plating solutions is a powerful and fast-acting poison; numerous compounds when added to acid release deadly HCN and other gasses.

Then there's disposal. Hobbyists can lose their idealism when the cost to properly dispose of a small shelf of chemicals runs into 5 figures. And one large beaker of chrome plating solution smashed on the garage floor can poison all the wells for blocks around.

Best of luck in your plating work!

opinion! Electroplating is very hazardous and I hope that morons do not try to attempt it. The person should be given full training before trying to electroplate anything.

A. Hello, Greg.

If you only need a thin coating, you can purchase a "liquid gold" immersion plating solution.
This requires little beyond heating the solution in a microwave and wiping the inside of the goblet with the solution . Please see our FAQ "Silver Plating at Home" for more information on immersion plating with silver or gold. Good luck!

(But, yes, dissolving your gold coin would probably involve hazardous chemicals if you go that route instead).

Good luck.

Hi, Joseph. Nothing wrong with hobby plating kits -- go for it -- but we deleted the company name you quoted at their request; people can easily do a google search for companies marketing to hobby platers. Thanks!

But your claim that amateurs are up to date while professionals are out of date is ridiculous -- like saying only backyard mechanics can fix Hybrids cars, not professionals; or only midwives can do laparoscopic surgery, not surgeons; or amateur golfers know about carbon fiber club shafts but the pros don't.

- "Old time platers" visit Capitol Hill every year to meet with Congress (NASF Washington Forum) to try to get laws like the "Categorical Standards" modified, which state that every drop of water associated with plating is regulated as hazardous even if you can safely drink gallons of it.
- "Old time platers" travel the country to attend expositions/conferences (Sur/Fin 20xx, Coatings 20xx, Southern Metal Finishing) on new technologies which might ease the regulatory & environmental burden. They meet monthly (AESF Branch meetings, NAMF Chapter meetings) to insure that they hear every presentation on each new technology like trivalent chrome plating, white bronze as a replacement for nickel, zinc alloys as a replacement for cadmium, and cyanide-free silver.
- "Old time platers" sponsor research every year (AESF Research Sponsors program), paying for the university programs which study and improve plating processes.
- "Old time platers" write the peer-reviewed journal articles (Plating & Surface Finishing, Metal Finishing, Journal of Applied Surface Finishing) which keep us up to date with the latest developments.
- "Old time platers" have training & certification programs which test whether they actually know their stuff (Certified Electro-Finisher, Master Surface Finisher) vs. who is just talking out of their axx.
- "Old time platers" sponsor those high school science fairs you talked about (the Milwaukee Science Fair and Chicago Science Fair), as well as contests for aspiring auto designers (The Bright Design Challenge), etc.

Meanwhile people selling plating out of their garage are in violation of countless laws including failure to have a NPDES permit, failure to follow DOT registration requirements in transporting their waste to the dump, failure to register the start date for their hazardous waste accumulation, failure to test that everything going to the drain is within the required ppm range, failure to register for the MACT program, and failure to alert their neighbors of the chemicals they have on hand ("Community Right to Know Act"). If a neighborhood child develops cancer of any type for any reason, and her parents find out you were chrome plating in your garage, God help you.

Everyone is in favor of "newer, safer, environmentally responsible ways"; but talk is cheap and it is "old time platers" who prove their environmental responsibility by maintaining all of the required permits, which in turn means they are regularly inspected by the regulatory authorities, while the garage platers don't register, remain ignorant of the law, hide below the radar, and guess that they are not doing too much environmental damage, although they often lack the knowledge to actually know. The worst case of plating pollution that I am aware of in a 45-year career was from a chrome shop in a 2-car garage (Odessa Chrome Superfund Site / U.S. vs. Sequa et al). It will be so costly that the legal fees (before the actual clean up costs even begin) is in the multi-millions.

Your turn.

Regards,

Hi, Glenn.

The original poster was immediately given the formula she asked for if she wanted to make her own nickel plating solution rather than buy a bottle. Each reader will decide for themself whether you or we who are more guilty of exaggeration :-)

Regards,

It's pretty funny to see a complaint about safety concerns. Plating uses a ton of chemistry, and if you've had formal education on it, you know that certain chemicals can harm you. But, what you don't know is just how badly or quickly unfamiliar chemical solutions can hurt you and others.

So good, you want to plate a doorknob? Well, I hope everyone gives the warnings before someone goes and harms themselves, their family, and their community!

Great advice is on this site, and the warnings are part of what's so great about it.

A. Hi, Michael. Tom immediately answered the OP's question in the first response, but to re-iterate --

The most common nickel plating solution is Watts' Nickel. It consists of:
- 225 to 300 g/l NiSO4.6H2O (nickel sulphate hexahydrate)
- 37 to 53 g/l NiCl2.6H2O (nickel chloride hexahydrate)
- 30 to 45 g/l H3BO3 (boric acid).

It is operated at 140 °F, pH 4.0, and current density of up to 40 ASF.

Sorry that we tend to use metric units like grams per liter rather than ounces/teaspoons per quart.

Without brightening agents, this will not be bright as plated; you'll have to buff it for brightness.

The very easiest way to clean onesy-twosy items is to scrub them with a solution of pumice [on eBay or Amazon], a little detergent, and warm water, using an old-fashioned tampico scrub brush [on eBay or Amazon]. Then rinse, a quick 30-sec dip into say 20% HCl, rinse, and into the plating tank. Best of luck!

Regards,

Thanks for the kind thoughts, Jon, and best wishes with your continuing efforts.

An advantage that hobbyists have over production platers that may help them focus on the important stuff, and not get lost in the woods worrying about things they don't need to worry about, is that hobbyists don't need 'equilibrium processes' like production platers do.

If your tank heats up or cools down just a little over the course of plating a part, or the pH rises or falls a little, or the nickel concentration drops a little, or the cleaning tank gets a little dirtier, or the acid a little weaker, or your anodes are not nickel S-rounds so they don't corrode at precisely the perfect rate, it's no problem as long as the part plated properly :-)

But if a production plater's first batch of parts goes into the tank at 7 AM, and the next batch at 7:10, and another one every 10 minutes for the rest of the day, 'little changes' are cumulative and the whole process will soon stop working. In turn, that means that the condition of the solution must be exactly the same when a part is finished plating as when it began -- and some nickel plating tanks operate that way every day for 20 years without being dumped and re-made. People who are only plating an occasional part don't to worry themselves about maintaining perfect equilibrium like that :-)

Regards,

A. Hi Ryan. An issue that may not have yet made clear to you by us or by the regulatory agency is that waste regulations are based not just on what a waste is, but also where it came from. Even before there was an EPA, plating shop wastes were regulated by the Department of the Interior, which selected electroplating as the very first industry to be subjected to 'categorical standards' (that is, effluent limitations based not just on the hazards, but based on the industry which generated them). Thus, copper sulphate might well be no issue for a home owner with a koi pond, or even for other industries, yet still be tightly regulated for electroplating use.

Plating shops who discharge to a sewer -- municipal waste water system, POTW (publicly owned treatment works) --absolutely, positively, without question or exception must comply with EPA/NPDES discharge standards! The way it actually works, though, is that the EPA delegates the responsibilities to your local POTW (sewer system): you apply for a discharge permit from your local POTW (sewer system) and they give you the standards you must adhere to (which can be tighter but cannot be laxer than federal standards), and the POTW is required to monitor you, while the EPA monitors them and that they are monitoring you.

But a small custom jewelry designer might not be considered a 'plating shop' (you & I can't make that ruling; the EPA does). If you are discharging to a municipal waste water system, they are charged with enforcing whatever are the applicable standards for your operation, so that's who to contact. Although I suspect that most small custom jewelry designers don't register, I think you might be considered a plating/metal finishing shop, but hopefully not. Good luck.

Regards,

  Hi Anatoly. The requested recipe was given in the first response to the first posting, to wit:

Readers remain free to stop there if they are only interested in the recipe and have no interest in books, training, hazards, & regulations; or to continue on according to their interests. Some readers will surely appreciate your posting, others will probably feel that you had nothing to say and shouldn't have wasted other people's time and yours :-)

Regards,

I'm a just a novice at plating and I make metal jewelry. Thank goodness my jewelry is better than my plating. I only use plating to cover up soldering.

I come here for help and roughly 99% of the time I get just that. I am astonished that people come here, get the "FREE" help they need, then bitch about getting too much, particularly when they're bitching about someone else's question. For those folks, go to Google, if they're not completely satisfied, complain to Google.

A. Hi Jim. You can try sodium saccharin and formaldehyde, which should be readily available and semi-bright to bright. Maybe a g/l or two of saccharin and 1/10 as much formaldehyde.

I know that people don't want to hear that the best nickel brighteners/addition agents are proprietary, but unfortunately they are "synthesized from precursors" -- in other words hobbyists can't make such chemicals because they're not "mixes", they're produced by high temperature, high pressure, synthesis (like making plastic from oil), and it is simply beyond the capability of even avid individuals to build & operate an organic chemical manufacturing plant. That is the milieu of Dow and Dupont, not hobbyists. Just as you can't "make" Teflon yourself, you can't make the 'perfect' nickel brightener yourself ... but you can certainly make some passable generic ones.

If you try the saccharin and formaldehyde, please let us know what you learn :-)

Regards,

A. I'm no expert on any of this but I'm a retired engineer who enjoys restoring cars. I needed to introduce some basic nickel plating to some of the refurbished parts. Here's what I've learned so far. If you're only only plating a few items either buy a pre-mixed plating solution or make your own out of basic off shelf supermarket ingredients. Distilled white vinegar [in bulk on eBay or Amazon] and salt.

Put a liter of vinegar in a container and mix in a couple of teaspoons of salt. Using a power supply of about 5 Volts attach the leads to two titanium wire lengths which carry the nickel pieces into the solution. Using titanium will keep the solution uncontaminated. Don't put cables or clips into the solution especially keep copper away. The cathode (negative) will produce bubbles and the solution will slowly change to pale green after about two hours. the solution will draw about 500 mA current. Use a fresh dry bottle to store the solution. Any metal to be plated must be rust-free and grease-free. The better the finish, the better the plating. It's common sense, light aggregate cleaning first, then smoothing, and finally wash off in distilled water, hot air dry and final clean with acetone.

Wear gloves so as to avoid transferring human skin oils when handling. Wire up components on titanium wire and suspend in tank of solution connected to negative terminal. On positive terminal do same with nickel anode. Switch on and components will start to bubble as the nickel is plating. Once you're satisfied that the nickel has covered the items (it can take up to two hours), remove and wash off in water. Don't over-polish them. Use a hard felt wheel with white bar metal polish (I think it's the same one for stainless) -- polish lightly. If you've prepared everything with care you should get a nice finish between matte and bright and you won't have endangered yourself with any chemicals. Obviously wash your hands frequently.

Hope this helps anyone new to the process. The salt by the way simply makes the solution more conductive, use a test meter to check the current drawn.

A. Hi Joe. Your question was addressed to Joe Doherty and we will try to advise him of it, but his posting was from 2 years ago. You are certainly welcome to try plating the valves yourself but I would suggest that you practice on some scrap material first especially in view of your statement that "What's of the utmost importance is that this plate never flakes."

That is a very tall order when plating onto old nickel or monel. I would not attempt to copper plate them if I were you but would search the site for "Wood's Nickel Strike" to better understand the issue and possible solutions. Good luck!

Regards,

A. Hi again, Joe. You are right that there are many threads on this site about even such narrow subjects as the Wood's Nickel Strike -- which brings us back to you being welcome to experiment with plating but others being unable to distill the art & science down to a paragraph or two.

The page you mentioned will serve as well as any other single page to introduce you to Wood's; and it doesn't say the Metal Finishing Guidebook is unavailable; rather, it links to an on-line copy. Download it quick because access could disappear at any time, as previous digital copies have come & gone epeatedly over the years :-)

One thing to realize about electroplating is that for it to be truly useful rather than being just a cheap paint job, it almost always needs to be corrosion resistant and to exhibit excellent adhesion to the substrate that it is plated onto. Getting plating to occur is one thing; getting it to stick right is another. Old nickel surfaces are quite conductive so getting plating to occur on them is relatively easy. But those nickel surfaces have a "natural passivity": an oxide film quickly forms on them; and for proper adhesion, plating must be applied to raw metal not to an oxide film. The way to solve that issue is with an initial layer applied from a solution which is both a very strong acid as well as a plating solution -- a "Nickel Strike", the best known of which is Wood's. After the Wood's, you can proceed quickly to a conventional nickel plating solution like Watts for the bulk of the plating.

ASF means amps/square foot. You would need to estimate the surface area of your valve and multiply by the suggested ASF for the process, maybe 20-40 ASF for nickel striking and plating. Chemicals may be obtainable from hobby plating suppliers or commodity chemical suppliers. Unfortunately the large vendors of plating processes may be unwilling to sell to a hobbyist or ship to a residential address for product stewardship & liability reasons :-(

Luck & Regards,

A. Hi. A digital copy of the Guidebook is currently available at:

Apologies, and thanks for finding that page which had not been updated with this info; it now has been.
On-line access to the Metal Finishing Guidebook has been on-again off-again for years, and maintaining working links and current info on 50,000 pages going back to 1989 has been quite a challenge ... so we appreciate when people tell us about broken links or dated information they discover here :-)

Luck & Regards,