Zinc electroplated bolt

[bemader]

I've done electroplating before using homemade or purchased solutions but decided to try it again.



This rusty bolt and wing nut seemed like a good test piece. It was rusted bad enough that I used some heat and a vise/pliers to get the wing nut broke free.



This is after a little work with a wire wheel to clean the loose rust off. Wasn't as bad as it looked and it could be reused as is for some things.



After a few cycles of plating and cleaning I ended up with this dull coating.



After a little light wire wheel work, I got a fairly nice shiny part. Still very pitted and the threads aren't perfect but the nut screws on easily by hand and hopefully it will resist rust for a while.

I didn't measure anything making my plating solution but it is a mixture of citric acid, water, and a little bit of table sugar. The zinc was a long piece of zinc I cast using a piece of angle iron as the mold.



With no power hooked to it, the anode is bubbling and slowly dissolving into the solution so I'm hoping this solution will work better when more zinc is dissolved in it but it seemed to work so far even though this was only made a hour or two before using it.

I broke my power supply that I used before to electroplate so this time I used a cheap 5 volt/3 amp power supply.

I plan to use this solution or the same homemade mixture to set up a better plating tank/tub/bucket with a better method of cleaning and degreasing the parts but this quick test proved to me that a homemade solution and a cheap power supply gives usable results. I haven't tested this plating to see how good it holds up exposed to the weather and road salt but it should be better than nothing.

 

[bemader]

Continuing my electroplating experiments, I dug out some scrap brake parts.



This is just another test. I don't even know what this was from but this is one of the types of things I could see being nice to be able to zinc plate.



This is after some work cleaning the rust and scale off a piece of that scrap with a combination of hammer, wire wheel, and a day's soaking in a citric acid solution.



This was my first attempt at zinc plating it. Obviously, the prep work wasn't good enough but it was working in places. I was still using a bigger jar but the part didn't fit completely submerged in the plating solution and there wasn't room to move the anode or add another anode to get better coverage.





This was after more cleaning and a very quick plating. It's better but not good enough. I need to get my sand blast cabinet moved and set up or find a better way to clean the hard to reach spots. Considering this likely doesn't fit any vehicle I have, I'm done with it for now.

I spent several hours plating it using the 5 volt/3amp power supply not counting the time I spent cleaning it and the day of soaking. It proved (to me) that it is possible.

Next step will probably be making more plating solution to fill a larger container. I was impressed with how good the citric acid soak helped remove the rust. This part was really rusted and had a lot of large flakes to remove. I got a lot of the worst chunks off before soaking it and there are still some that should be removed but the citric acid got it pretty much ready for paint if that was what I wanted to do. I don't know how long that solution will continue to work and vinegar or a stronger acid might work better but I had the citric acid.

A better method of degreasing would probably help too. All I did on this test was scrub the part with soap and hot water and didn't test to see if the water "sheeted" off so it's possible part of the spotty coverage was from oil that wasn't removed.