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Can you do silver plating of rings, jewelry, platters, cups, flatware and awards, at home? If so, where do you get the materials -- and how do you do it?
  Electroplating Engineering Handbook, Lawrence Durney  Practical Electroplating Handbook, N.V. Parthasaradhy
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IntroductionIf you already know the kind of product you are seeking, please feel free to skip ahead to "Sourcing". These introductory paragraphs are for those readers who would like to really understand what silver plating is about, what the differences are between what you can do at home and the services you get from a plating shop, etc. "Immersion Silvering"
Many of our readers report being very satisfied with this immersion silvering. All of the wipe-on or dip-in brands work on exactly the same principal, which is not to say that all the brands are identical; some readers feel that some brands are better than others, and it may have to do with the silver concentration, the ease of use, the polishing agents in the mix, etc. Real silver electroplatingIn simplest terms the difference between immersion silvering and what is done at a silver plating shop is that the plater employs an external source of DC current (a rectifier) so the plating proceeds regardless of the material of construction of the item being plated and continues long past the point where the base metal is merely covered, on until a very significant thickness of silver is deposited (measured in thousandths of an inch instead of millionths). So the longevity and durability of real silver electroplating is in a whole different class than immersion plating. Naturally, the plating shop may also employ a number of other processes on the item: covering over any solder, filling any pits with copper, leveling with nickel plating, buffing to a nice luster, etc. The plating shop may also apply a tarnish-inhibiting topcoat of electrophoretic lacquer or rhodium over the silver. The next question that may arise is whether you can do this real silver electroplating at home, and the answer unfortunately is no. Decorative silver electroplating is always done from a cyanide-based solution, and cyanide is one of the deadliest and fastest acting poisons known. Ingestion of even a few drops is fatal but, just as bad, if the solution is accidentally acidified, deadly hydrogen cyanide gas is released (mixing acid and cyanide is how the gas chamber operates). You probably won't find a vendor anywhere who will ship this chemical to a residence, particularly after 9-11. Is it possible to do silver electroplating from a non-cyanide solution? Well, 95% of all silver plating is done from cyanide and has been for a hundred years despite intense efforts to find a substitute across many decades. Although there are some proprietary non-cyanide solutions, they are more difficult to operate, more costly, more troublesome, and less versatile; and they are designed for electronics plating, not for decorative silver plating because the color isn't quite right. It is not possible to do silver plating from silver nitrate, photographic chemicals, or anything like that. If you can get results that you consider satisfactory from an over-the-counter immersion plating process, great. If not, send the item to a silver plating shop. For an affordable introductory education in electroplating, we recommend getting a copy of the Metal Finishing Guidebook. Some libraries may have it but, if not, because it is an annual book that is included with a subscription to Metal Finishing magazine, old copies are readily available and very inexpensive from used book dealers.
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That's for you to decide! Some opinions have been expressed on the many Hotline Letters we have printed here including letter nos. 1432, 5830, 6167, 7037, 11982, 21293, 21581, 23506, 23972, 26537, 28810, and 28994.
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