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Gold electroplating of audio tone arms

Help - will you ladies and gents out there please help me - I would like to electroplate audio tone arms etc with Gold - (this is for my own personal use not commercial) preferably using old gold rings that I have worn "through" during the past 40 years in the heavy engineering industry - as I am no longer fit to work I have to keep the cost down as much as possible yet require a good standard finish - the thicker the better?

Thanking you in anticipation of your help,

Nigel J Dyne
- West Wales, United Kingdom
2002

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Sorry, this won't prove practical in my opinion, Nigel. The first problem is that one reason gold is so valuable is that it won't easily dissolve or take part in chemical reactions. You can't plate gold out of solution until you dissolve it into solution. And you won't be able to dissolve your rings in simple acids like most metals (you definitely do not want to use cyanide or aqua regia in a non-professional environment). Secondly, the anodes should either be pure gold or inert, and your rings are alloys of gold plus copper, silver, and other metals.

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
2002