After calling plating services in my area I am considering purchasing zinc plating equipment to do my fasteners. Are there any member vendors doing this currently? If there is nobody whos toes would be stepped on, I would be interested in plating handfuls of hardware/brackets for others as well.

I would need to recoup the purchase price of the machine in order to validate it for my wife...

Make sure you can do calipers, and I'll use the service.

Stu

I bought a home plating kit. It was a PITA. Now I leave it to the pros. Hopefully you have better luck.

I am using the caswell zinc plating and chrome yellow system.

It is kind of picky to make it work right, but it does work.

You need to maintain the temperature and PH right.

You need to have a good constant current power supply, which are $ for high amp
ones.

I bought their 5 amp power supply and it is a little under powered for what we
want to do.

This means you can't do loads of parts at once. I can do 30 bolts or a couple of
door lock mechanisms at once.

Some folks have found higher amp power supplies on ebay for
less money.

If you follow their directions, it works.

The process feels a lot like cooking a complex meal.

I think if you tried to make up your own solutions, you would suffer from
contamination and your parts would be blotchy, etc. Keeping your solutions from
getting contaminated is critical.

It helps to have a plating workbench set up to keep things organized.

Some of this stuff, like chromic acid are very nasty.

I would do it again because it is really convenient when you want a couple things
plated and you need them for some assembly and don't want to wait weeks for
them to come back.

John

I have New Fastener kits for sale in yellow zinc and stainless.

The Caswell kit is one of the 3 that I am looking at. Fish tank heaters are supposed to be the ticket for constant temperature...

Strut bolts and brackets? Frunk and trunk latches? Fuel tank strap bolt? Headlight motor arm? Thermostat bracket? Alternator pivot? All these little pieces are the ones I am looking to plate. I looked at your vendor topic and didn't see any of the random formed parts listed. Like I posted, I don't want to try and reinvent the wheel or step on other vendors "turf".

Front & Rear Trunk latches-under Kit 1 Lock (available )
Strut bolts-In progress (estimate 8-10 weeks out)
Headlight-In progress (estimate 8-10 weeks out)
Thermostat & Alternator-In progress (estimate 12-16 weeks out)
Fuel Tank-In progress (estimate 12-16 weeks out)