Being the owner of a large boat I had a bunch of Zinc left over from the boat and thought I would try my hand a Zinc Plating. Here is one of my first large batches! I experimented with times and multiple coates!

Here is how the first few attempts came out!

Nice.
That is on my to do list.

explain your method for us amateurs.
Gary

Do modern paints adhere to it?

Skip

Let me say that once it is set up and running it seems easy but its more work than it looks. Cleaning the parts is the hardest part! you need to make sure there is nothing on the part, no dirt, oils or anything! I used a wire wheel and dipped it in acetone.

Making the solution was the second hardest part. You have to get the Zinc to disolve in the solution so it has to be acidic enough to disolve the material into a liquid form. I used vinegar, broke up some zinc and put it all in a 5 gallon bucket. Then I let it sit over night and it looked like dirty water in the morning. You then have to add epsom salt and sugar to make the solution. Do not use table salt unless you are doing this outside! Table salt is sodium cloride and will make a clorine gas that can be toxic!

The next part is the easy part. Hook up the positive side of your charger to a piece of zinc and hang the part in the solution with the negative side of your charger attached.

The voltage used needs to be between 1.5v and 2.0v.

Let is sit for 15-40 minutes (depending on the desired thickness) in the solution, you should see the part generating bubbles.

When the parts come out they look dirty or black and you pollish off the top coating to reveal the shiny new part!

I don't know!

I was going to try to powder coat over it and see how it turns out!

So what form of zinc are you using to get it to dissolve? Powder?

The zinc plates used on boats for electrolisis prevention will loose enough electrodes soaking overnight in the vinigar to plate the parts as long as you still have some zinc left on the positive side (Anode)! Zinc and copper are the only ones that you can use Vinegar as the Acid! Other metals need stronger acids and powder based solutions!

Zinc with a "c" please. If for no other reason than others can't search for it in the future. Unless Zink is some brand name.

Your waste solutions are going to the hazardous waste hauler, right? I know, I know We bust shops that dump that stuff. They get their sewer connections encased in cement. They learn the disappearing wallet trick. The grey bar motel is the worst part.

I knew someone on this board was smart!! Thanks

PS: I read that you can remove the zinc by putting it back into a solid form by plating something until there is no more free zinc floating electrons remaining in the bucket. And as long as your acididic solution is vineger, salt & sugar it is not an environmental hasard!? I have not confirmed this but thats what I read!

From the educational web page:
The Experiment is done: now, Waste Disposal!
In the "real world" waste disposal is a major headache for electroplating factories. But here you have only used toothpaste, vinegar, salt and sugar. The very small amount of zinc or copper you have dissolved into it is really not a significant issue. But let's learn to practice environmental responsibility, rather than learning to talk ourselves out of it! So, with the wires disconnected, put a good size chunk of Steel Wool [link is to product info at Rockler] into your bowl of plating solution. Any copper, and some of the zinc, will "immersion deposit", plating out onto the steel wool, thereby removing the waste from the solution. Copper metal is not a pollutant, but dissolved copper is. Good luck!

Good info; thx Jeff

I gave that a try but mine didn't look as good as yours. Regardless, for shop size loads, I decided it was significantly cheaper for me to send it out. But I still occasionally wish I had the setup and could do little onezie-twozie pieces.

Looks great though!

My first few pieces were not as nice so I spent more time on the preperation of the parts! Lots of cleaning and lots of time on the wire wheel makes for a nicer piece! I also let the Vinegar disolve the zinc for another day and it gave me more free zinc disolved to plate with. I am running 2.06v because that is as low as my unit will go but the lower the volts the slower the process!

That's awesome. Really awesome.

Nice work. Where did you order your stuff? I ordered a copy Cad kit from Caswell. Haven't received it yet, but looking forward to trying it out. I will post pictures and results when I have tried it. For the number of parts I have, it probably would have been more cost effective to have them done, but I just wanted to try it. Kind of a hobby thing, I guess.

Hi Jeff, If you want to clean dirty, rosty metal pieces this is how I do it.
First rough brushing with steel wire brush. Then drop it to vater/citric acid mixture for ~24h. Use max 5% mixture. I buy pigs diarrhea medicin which is same as citric acid.
Very cheap and cleans up good!
From here: http://harrasteet.1g.fi/kuvat/OmaPossu+II/...ront+brakes.JPG
To here: http://harrasteet.1g.fi/kuvat/OmaPossu+II/...2.12.11+006.JPG

Nothing to order! I had the zincs from my boat and a variable DC power supply that I've had for 20 years!

I would like to get the cad stuff but that uses stronger acids than the zinc with just vinegar.

So, what chemistry do you use to zinc plate? The copy cad from Castwell is basically a zinc plating setup and they offer yellow chromate that stains the fresh zinc varying degrees of yellow (with some red and green hues).

I'm interested in finding out about other zinc plating setups. It almost sounds like you use vinegar as an acid?

The vinegar, salt, and sugar solution is the acid (or electrolyte if you will). I You Tubed "zinc plating" and found alot of good info.

As far is I know zinc plating with out any pasivation makes no sence. Zink build white rust at atmosphere. Of corse not all types of zinc for example fire zinc not but electrochemical! Companies add some so called passivation. Al of you know screws/ washers which shine gold/Yellow or blue or olive. The passivation prevenst whit rust for a long time. Dependent on the type it last longer ore not.
olive -> highest, yellow- > middle, blue-> low.

In additon the companies add also cr6 free passivations, thats for our nature. If this happens the add an additional layer to reace achieve the requirements of fix defined salt spray test.

My parts are glas pearl blasted and afterwards zinc plated by a company.

The screw shows white rust with passivation

hope helps
Georg

it would be interesting to see a salt spray test on these plated parts.

A guesstimate is 75 hrs, very much depending on plating thickness vs. 250 hrs for yellow chromate. If you can't chromate the parts, I would at least coat them with something. Note that paint doesn't stick well on zinc, so you need a primer coat as well.