Electroplating - why bother?

To: "'Tesla List'" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Subject: Electroplating - why bother?
From: Tesla List <tesla-at-stic-dot-net>
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1998 23:20:15 -0500
Approved: tesla-at-stic-dot-net

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From:  Bill Noble [SMTP:william_b_noble-at-email.msn-dot-com]
Sent:  Thursday, August 20, 1998 7:53 PM
To:  Tesla List
Subject:  Re: Electroplating - why bother?

    if you have a really nice torus anyway, why electroplate it - just coat
the wood with gold foil - it's cheap, available from any art store and will
make a really neat finish which will, of course, be quite conductive. you
just lay the sheets onto a thin layer of gum arabic and burnish lightly.  I
suspect thin aluminum or silver foil or tin foil will work fine also.  As
another thought, there are spray on conductive coatings which you can buy in
small cans for around $20 per can - they are used for EMI suppression.
Don't have a reference handy.

for my 2 cents, I'd go with gold foil - you could always claim it's solid
gold that way
-----Original Message-----
From: Tesla List <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
To: 'Tesla List' <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Date: Wednesday, August 19, 1998 10:57 PM
Subject: Electroplating


>
>
>----------
>From:  Jim Lux [SMTP:James.P.Lux-at-jpl.nasa.gov]
>Sent:  Wednesday, August 19, 1998 11:27 AM
>To:  Tesla List
>Subject:  Re: Electroplating
>
>Tesla List wrote:
>>
>> ----------
>> From:  RODERICK MAXWELL [SMTP:tank-at-magnolia-dot-net]
>> Sent:  Tuesday, August 18, 1998 9:26 AM
>> To:  tesla-2-at-emachine-dot-com; tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
>> Subject:  Electroplating
>>
>> I want to try to build a torus by using wood turned on a lathe, or on
>> a homemade spindle. After the torus is shaped, sanded, and coated with
>> varnish I wish to use a method to electroplate the torus mentioned in a
>> book by Walt Noon "Secrets of Building Lighting Bolt Generators. With
>> this process you can coat nonconductive objects with copperplate. One of
>> the chemicals mentioed is Silver Nitrate.
>>   If there is anyone on the list that has a chemistry background I would
>> like to know what concentration of silver nitrate you would need for
>> this process. There are many different concentrations listed at Fisher
>> Scientifics website.
>>
>
>Check the archives. About a year or so ago, there was a lot of
>discussion about "home" electroplating. As for silver nitrate, you want
>the solid granular stuff, and you probably don't need the most expensive
>reagent grade either.
>
>The tricky thing about silvering things (non electroplating methods) is
>that the classic processes (Brashear's, for instance) can produce silver
>fulminate which is notoriously unstable.
>
>For electroplating, I don't think this is an issue, although the
>cyanides and acids necessary would require some attention, particularly
>with respect to disposal of your used plating baths (you can't really
>just dump it down the drain in good conscience).
>
>Lindsay pubs has a plating handbook of some sort, as I recall. And, a
>trip to the library might be useful. This whole plating thing is very
>much an art, at least at our level, and there are a whole host of
>interacting variables like current density, bath temperature and bath
>concentrations.
>
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