• Hi Guest!
    You can help ensure that British Car Forum (BCF) continues to provide a great place to engage in the British car hobby! If you find BCF a beneficial community, please consider supporting our efforts with a subscription.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

Caswell Copy Cad/Zinc plating kit

Share this page

John Loftus

John Loftus

Darth Vader
Offline
I just received my Caswell Copy Cad/Zinc plating kit. Planning to redo all the fasteners, brackets, etc. that originally came zinc plated. Just wondering if anyone else has been using this kit and has some tips to share. I do have a small sand blast cabinet that is loaded up with glass beads to prep the parts.

BTW, the new kit has been updated with a very nice 3 Amp recitifier (power supply) with adjustable voltage and current.

Cheers,
John
 
John - please let us know how it worked.

Bruce
 
I used to do zinc (and other types of plating) for Digital Equipment Corp many years ago. The requirements for a good plate are mostly in the cleaning of the part (so no residue of any kind is left on it) and a good solid connection for the electricity to run through.

Good luck!
 
[ QUOTE ]
John - please let us know how it worked.

Bruce

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm getting the hang of it. It's really important that the parts are prepped for the plating (wire wheel, glassbead, tumble, etc.) If you want a shiney finish then the parts should be wire wheeled and/or buffed accordingly. If it is a matte finish you are looking for then bead blast or tumbled will work. As John mentions above, De-greasing is also very important. Caswell comes with a degreasing solution that you heat and dip the parts into for 5 minutes but it doesn't seem to work all that well. I've been trying a 1 to 4 solution of muriatic acid and distilled water with better results. Anyway here are a few before and after pictures:

2005_0326(020).JPG
2005_0326(025).JPG
zinc_lores.jpg
 
Parts look great!!!

Bruce
 
Hi John, The parts look good which kit did you purchase??---Keoke
 
OK John Thanks Cheers---Keoke
 
Does this plating add enough material to change the characteristics of fasteners? In other words, will screws and bolts still fit in the original holes/nuts etc.?
 
HI Dan, I do not think that will be a problem.Hardware that is sent out to platers do not present fitting problems at all.---Fwiw---Keoke
 
Hi Dan,

As Keoke points out it is not a problem. The fasteners were originally zinc plated and are manufactured with enough tolerance so that they fit after plating. When restoring the fasteners you strip off any of the remaining old plating mechanically (blasting, wire wheel, tumbling) and/or chemically (distilled white vinegar works well). 30 minutes of zinc plating (with the Caswell kit) adds a 0.0005" plate thickness. An hour of plating = 0.001" so it's a thin film compared with triple chrome plating (where the threads usually need to be masked off).

Cheers,
John
 
Looks great! I have some parts like this that I would like to recoat, but never thought to look for a home kit!
 
This is perhaps a real silly question. .but my eye is not trained enough to tell the difference between something zinc plated and something nickel plated. Most of my engine pieces on my TR3 have a good enough coat of rust on them that I can't tell what they were coated with originally. I'm going to guess most screws, fasteners, and what not were zinc plated. Any insight?
 
Hi Mcguijo,
It’s a good bet that you don’t have any nickel plated pieces on your car. Nickel was replaced by chrome (though nickel is a part of the chroming process). I don’t know when the change occurred, maybe late forties? It is a relatively brittle coating so it would be more prone to flaking off on the threads of a bolt. I plated hood, door and trunk latches. The beauty of plating at home is if it scratches or peals, you can have it replated and back on your car in a few hours. You may get a faster and definitive answer in the Triumph forum.
 
Hi Mcguijo,

Yes, most screws, fasteners, bolts, nuts, washers, etc. were zinc plated. Often, panel screws and other fasteners that you would see in the interior will be chrome plated. If you go to the local hardware store and look at the nut and bolt bins the majority of them will be zinc plated. If you search under Google (images tab) for zinc plating you can see many examples.

Cheers,
John
 
95 percent of fasteners were and are zinc plated. Zinc is a sacrificial coating. It sacrifices itself to rust and the elements to protect the steel core from rusting. Nickel is used as a decorative coating as it doesnt give the same protection as zinc.
 
If the choice is between chrome and zinc I feel pretty confident that I can make the correct identification. Thanks for your help. I'm going to call Caswell this afternoon and try my hand at zinc plating!
 
Just a little update. I've been zinc plating quite a few larger items besides the bolts, nuts and screws. Here are a few pictures of the door check assembly with a before/after on the first image and the finished pair on the second. You can see the effect of the blackening dip that was used on the "star" washer. This is also avail. from Caswell and turns the zinc plated parts black after 5 or 10 minutes. The effect is similar to black phosphate but a bit more transparent. I have changed to using simple green to degrease the parts and have been plating everything at room temperature. Caswell includes heaters with the kits but I read that some people get good results without them.

doorcheck2.jpg
doorcheck1.jpg
 
Back
Top