How has that system been working out for you? There's a thread in the classics that shows some of your work.

Now that you've been using it a while... do you still recommend it? Any tips or tricks you've learned?

-Rusty

Hey "L", Post a link to the classic thread. I was just talking with my son Aric about cad drawing/programing as a career. He's very talented in the arts. He never heard of cad before. He currently has a career planning class and is more confused now about a career path than ever!

Different Cad, Rick. Cas ad in cadmium plating.

Bottom line... it works.. sort of.

I found it easier to bring a crapload of the stuff to the local plater and have it all done for $75 bucks!

I'm off to the airport.

WIll post more later.

Qarl

Ooops, my bad.... never mind..

That's unfortunate. The problem with taking a bucket of loose bolts to the cad plater... is that I'll never remember what went where when it comes time for reassembly.

The ability to plate a few things to brighten up the job you're doing right NOW would be pretty cool.

Hope to hear more details.

-Rusty

I found the Caswell plating kit to be sort of a PITA. It works, but...

You have to hang each part individually.

You have to pay attention to the amperage and square inches of the part being covered. I ended up getting a multitude of power supplies and having several of them ready to go. I would then just plug in more power supplies until I could see "bubbling" coming from the part being plated. In this stage, you were depositing real zinc onto your parts. Very cool

The more parts being plated simultaneously, the more amperage you need. The easiest soultion is to get a variable power supply with which you can alter the voltage and amperage. These are pretty pricey, however. Check a surplus store.

I was only able to plate 3 or 4 small parts at a time.

Preparation is the key... sand blasting was required, followed by a degreasing and then a pickling in an water/sulfuric acid solution.

I made a "bar" using copper plumbing pipe to hang across the top of the bucket.

I then hung parts using copper ribbon. I found the ribbon worked better then the copper wire.

At the bottom of the ribbon I used an aligator clip screwed into the ribbon and then clipped onto the part.

You cannot touch the parts until they are dry, or else your finger oil will blacken the zinc.

I found the yellow cad coating didn't hold well and was very inconsistent. Some applications of the yellow cad coating worked perfectly. I could never figure out the variable that made good coatings vs. bad.

I would usually "dry" the parts by placing them on a towel in the oven set to a low temperature (like 150 degrees) or placing them next to a portable heater fan.

It WILL work for small parts. You have to experiment and play with everything.

I purchased the 2 1/2 gallon kit.

Regards,

Qarl