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Art student looking to plate copper onto steel

I am currently working on a sculpture that I wish to electroplate. It is hot-rolled steel and I only want to plate a specific section of it. From what I read on this site, I think I can do this with immersion plating using copper sulphate. Is there another process that will work better? Or if the immersion plating is the way to go, how would I go about doing it on a reasonably large scale (the part that I want to plate is 9 ft x 6 in)? Or, ultimately, would I have to take this to a plating shop?

Laura Garcia
Art Student - El Paso, Texas, United States
February 11, 2009

Hi, Laura. An immersion copper deposit will be very thin and it will not have any shine to it at all; rather it will be a raw, salmon-toned deposit.

I think you would be better off looking into brush plating a thin layer of nickel (nickel strike) and following it by copper electroplating with the same brush plating setup.

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
(Ted is available for instant or longterm help)
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
February 12, 2009

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