• Hey Guest!
    British Car Forum has been supporting enthusiasts for over 25 years by providing a great place to share our love for British cars. You can support our efforts by upgrading your membership for less than the dues of most car clubs. There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Upgraded members don't see this banner, nor will you see the Google ads that appear on the site.)
  • When posting a classified ad, you MUST select a prefix from the drop-down next to the subject line. If you don't you will get an error and your ad will not be posted!
Tips
Tips

Caswell Plug-N-Plate Plating Kits?

Share this page

dklawson

dklawson

Yoda
Offline
I will be posting this inquiry in a couple of locations so please excuse the duplication if you come across it more than once.

My wife just bought one of the Caswell Plug-N-Plate plating kits to improve the appearance of some parts on a machine she is restoring. These kits are similar to ones sold by Eastwood and Micro-Mark among others. I of course am going to be watching to see if the results are good enough for me to use this kit on my automotive projects.

My wife and I are both looking at the plating kits for cosmetic work, not heavy or thick plating for wear or permanent corrosion resistance. The particular kit my wife bought was the dual component kit for both copper and nickel. I encouraged her to buy that kit as my industrial experience is that copper is often applied as a flash or tie coat plating between nickel and steel.

My question here is, have any of you used the Plug-N-Plate kits and do you have any tips and tricks for getting good results?

Thanks in advance.
 
I have used their zinc and zinc-tin plating systems. Excellent results can be obtained by following their instructions, thoroughly cleaning and preparing the work piece, keeping the plating fluids clean, and definitely get their power supply so you can control the plating process.

I am not impressed with their zinc cad coating system, as the "cadmium" coating is only lightly bonded to the zinc under layer, but their blue gives nice results.

Let us know how it goes, especially if you add the chrome plating to the kit, which I have considered for my gauge bezels.
 
Depending on how muck you intend to plate, these small scale systems are OK. However, the supplies can get expensive. You may want to make contact with a local industrial plating company.
We have a local guy who will do a 5 gal. bucket full for $40. I do all the prep work like media blasting and polishing. I have been using him for hardware and small parts for years.

plating-1.jpg
 
Years ago when I worked for a textile equipment company we took the same approach that you are mentioning. We'd disassemble the "show machine" equipment and bead blast everything we wanted to look nice and have a bulk lot of parts nickel plated. It was cost effective when done as a lot.

In this case however, my wife is interested in plating one or two parts at a time as she restores the machine.

I'll let you guys know how well the small kit works.
 
Back
Top