Nickel Plating Solution Recipe Needed!

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 this 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 repeatedly 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. The usual 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:

Thanks for finding that page which had not been updated with this info. It now has been.

Luck & Regards,

A. I am a knowledgeable finisher and also a hobby trumpet player. I am not an instrument restorer. I don't think adding electroplating to a monel instrument valve is likely to result in an acceptable tolerance fit that would allow the valve to perform satisfactorily unless the valve housing is much too large for the valves. I have an antique trumpet (110 years old) that does have a sloppy fit between the valves and the valve housing, but I believe that electroplating the valve would not be the way to restore that. Instead the housing would need to be re-bored and then the valves would be remade completely (not plated) to fit the housing. I don't have any first-hand knowledge in instrument restoration, so this is just my opinion of how I think that it is done.

A. Hi. I can't totally agree with John because countless things from shafts, to molds, to lithographic rolls, to pistons & valves are routinely electroplated to restore or increase dimension (although they are not made of monel).

But when something once round now fits too loosely into a once round hole, it can be a leap of faith to believe that both have worn evenly and are still round. And to expect the plating to be of uniform thickness takes a second leap of faith. :-)

I also know nothing of musical instrument repair, but in other fields it would not be unusual to hone the bore oversize, and plate the piston oversize, then grind it down to a proper fit.

Luck & Regards,

A. A Watts nickel formulation will give you a smooth matte plate:
40-8-6 ounces per gallon of nickel sulfate, 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 explained in ASM Handbook, vol.5 .

Those older addition agents include saccharin or paratoluene as the carrier; thiourea or reduced fuchsin as the brightener; sodium allyl sulfonate or 1,4-butyne diol as the auxiliary brightener; and sodium lauryl sulfate 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 sulfate 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 didn't read things wrong and offend you, but while this forum can be useful for answering specific questions, as Tom answered with the formula for Watt's Nickel, it's not the most efficient way to introduce people to electroplating; books are "tutorial", proceeding from scratch to deep knowledge over the course of a hundred pages, whereas web postings tend to either be repetitive to a maddening degree or over our heads; plus people may wrongly assume they can just jump in without safety & environmental hazards -- especially when they go unmentioned in threads like this (as evidenced by the first 7 entries)-- whereas 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 happy for your success, since sharing info is the very purpose of this forum and its tens of thousands of entries --please share your recipe for "the brightest and finest finish I've ever seen".

But yes, we do refer people to books for more efficient tutorial learning and to increase the likelihood that they understand what the hazards are and the appropriate safety protocols. In my own town recently a hobbyist killed himself 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 offer "recipes" without also mentioning safety and ecological disposal.

Electroplating does involve 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 will release deadly poison gasses.

Then there is disposal. Ecologically-oriented hobbyists can lose their idealism when the price to properly dispose of a small shelf of chemicals runs into 5 or 6 figures. What of secondary containment? One large beaker of chrome plating solution broken on the garage floor can poison all the wells for blocks around.

Best of luck in your plating work, but please consider a haz-mat training seminar if you're continuing to mix chemicals. Good luck.

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. Good luck!

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

Good luck.

Hi, Joseph. We deleted the company name you quoted at their request, but people can easily do a google search for companies marketing to hobby platers. Thanks!

Your assumption that amateurs are up to date and professionals are out of date seems a bit silly; it's like saying only backyard mechanics can properly 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 technology which might ease the regulatory and 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 to 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 the 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).

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 became a superfund site, and 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. Each reader will decide for themself whether it is you or we who is most 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 and very directly answered the OP's question in the very 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 sulfate 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 powdered pumice, a little detergent, and warm water, using an old-fashioned tampico scrub brush. Then rinse, a quick dip into say 20% HCl, rinse, and into the plating tank. Best of luck!

Regards,

Several years ago I started plating as part of a small artisan workshop. I restrict myself to the less hazardous salts and find other alternative non-plating routes where necessary. I have a growing library of plating books and downloaded academic papers. I am not a chemist by education (physicist).

My operation is small (25 litres is a lot of electrolyte in my workshop) bunded containers of course, 1st wash pull out is recycled back into the electrolyte to replace evaporation losses (almost zero loss to the environment) and I am prepared to pay for disposal (my political allegiance is Green).

I understand the frustrations of amateurs wanting to do an adhoc job but as I progress and improve more I fully understand their concerns. The idea of folks flushing nickel or worse down drains, getting exposed to things they should not and so on is scary and its not always the person doing the plating who will pay the price.

I have invested time and money into making sure that my set up is environmentally sound, even though I am the only worker I still have documented work flows and practices not only to keep me on the straight and narrow but to avoid impact on my finished articles - I have a motivation in the sense that it is a small artisan business ( not a plate shop )and I have every reason to continue to refine, improve and learn and also the local authorities have the right to come round and check me out - I am just not sure a weekender has the same motivation.

Sorry to sound like I am sucking up to the pros and of course if they inspected my set up they still might find fault despite all my labours and research. That's precisely why I agree with them and wish to continue to learn from them not for a day or two but year in and year out.

Ted - keep on your current course you are right IMHO, you try to tread the difficult path between encouraging kids with school projects yet pointing out the environmental and safety pit falls. Unfortunately we live in an age of knee jerk reactions and people who have had no training or relevant education who think they know better than the experts. Despite photographs of the surface of Mars or the cure of many types of cancer and miracle eye operations the average Joe still thinks he knows better than the "experts" who achieved those things -- in his/her view Doctors are still talking out of their bottoms and news of man's impact on the environment is nothing more than chinese whispers. I am fed up with it and long for the times when people listened to those who know rather than those who shout loudest or get on their indignant soap box and share their "facts" with others. Experts are wrong sometimes but at least they were not guessing - anyone can toss a coin and be right some of time but science and civilisation has rejected guessing in favour of knowledge and it works most of the time.

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

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, publicly owned treatment works) absolutely, positively, without question 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. Good luck.

Regards,

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

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

Ricky Nelson: "Garden Party" --

Regards,

A. Hi Jim. You can try sodium saccharin and formaldehyde, which should be readily available and semi-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 not easy, but the reason you see the question asked for decades but never answered 100% is because it is complicated and proprietary ... and people are not completely satisfied when they can't, in a couple of hours, match what the major corporations have spent decades and millions of dollars on. The best nickel addition agents are "synthesized from precursors" -- in other words consumers can't make such chemicals because they are not 'mixes', they are produced by high temperature, very high pressure, synthesis (like making plastics from oil), and it is far beyond the capability of the most avid individual to build and operate such an organic chemical manufacturing plant. Just as you can't "make" Teflon yourself, you can't make the ideal nickel brighteners yourself.

If you do try the saccharin and formaldehyde though, 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 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.