This is a running log of my first attempt at gold plating a razor. I have a some experience nickel plating, having started out using vinegar based nickel acetate and moving on to commercially produced acid nickel electrolyte. In the learning process, I've experimented with battery acid, brake cleaner, acetone, muriatic acid, root kill, Draino, lye, sodium bisulfate, ammonia, trisodium phosphate, soda ash, and even baking soda, vinegar, glycerin, and table salt. I've electro-cleaned, electro-stripped, and electro-plated using several different techniques. Now that I've gotten good results nickel plating, I'm ready to try plating with precious metals. Gold and Rhodium are both plated over a layer of nickel so I have a little bit of a head start. Normally, I try new things with spent rifle cases, but this time I'm doing something new. I'm going to buy a low cost Chinese razor, strip off the chrome finish, touch up the nickel strike, add a bright nickel plate, and then plate in 14k gold. The razor is on its way. At this point, this razor will become either treasure (if you can call an gold plated $8 razor treasure) or trash.
First things first. The BT131 isn't a brass razor. It's cast zinc plated with chrome. I've never worked with zinc and the only thing I've done with chrome was strip it off a brass box before plating in, you guessed it, nickel. In that case, I used a nickel stripper to desolve the nickel strike plate and the chrome just flaked off leaving bare brass. I can't do that with this razor because that would leave bare zinc. You can't plate zinc with acid based electrolytes. The preferred processes for plating on zinc use cyanide electrolytes. I'm not willing to handle cyanide plating baths, so that's a no go. There are a few other options for plating zinc, but I have no experience with the chemicals involved and I really have no other use for them. Perhaps someday I will try plating zinc, but today is not that day. So, I have to remove the chrome without removing the nickel. I can't find a reliable and novice friendly way to perform this step. Once the chrome is stripped, the rest of the project is identical to a nickel plated razor minus nickel stripping. As that's the only part most will find useful, we'll skip to that point.
Razor arrived right on time. Took a quick picture and headed out to the shop to get that darn chrome off. Well, that didn't take long. Just over 4 minutes. It took me longer to get things set up. You can clearly see the color of the nickel in contrast to the chrome razors and the color matches my most recent nickel plating project almost exactly.
So, I pollished the razor and now it won't pass the water break test. The water should sheet off and not bead up. This means I have to mix a boiling alkali bath to soak the razor in before copper plating. Too much to setup and then put away tonight. I guess plating will have to wait until tomorrow. No time to do this tonight.
Wired up the parts with scrap copper wire. Hot Alkali Bath: Bath is made up of 200 ml of ammonia 300 ml distilled water 2 tbsp trisodium phosphate (TSP) 2 tsp dish soap Add parts and bring to boil in well ventilated area. 10 minutes The parts started to bubble as soon as added to the warm bath indicating the alkali bath is reacting to a residue on the surface. Most likely polishing compound. Setup plating station while waiting for parts. I set the power supply to 1.5 volts to simulate the power being supplied by a single C or D cell battery. Copper likes to plate at low voltage. Rinse part in tap water and then distilled water for 1 min. Alkali Electro Clean: recipe: 12.5 g sodium carbonate aka soda ash (not bicarbonate) 5 g trisodium phosphate 5 g sodium hydroxide aka lye 500 ml distilled water Stainless steel anode (+). You can use a cheap spoon or butter knife for this. Part is cathod (-). 5 V for 2 minutes. You can see the part producing bubbles which is how this process cleans the part. Rinse part in tap water and then distilled water for 1 min. Acid bath: 15% HCL acid. muriatic acid available at any hardware store. You can also use sodium bisulfate and distilled water for this step, but I haven't tried it yet. The acid bath is critical for cleaning and activating the part. Passes water break test The distilled water should sheet off the part and not bead up. If the water beads you still have contaminants (soils) on the part and plating will not produce the desired results. Copper electro plating bath: I decided to use commercially available plating electrolyte. This is available for $18 per liter on Amazon. Copper Anode. Part as Cathod. 1.5 VDC. 6 min. Agitate the bath while plating. Parts after plating in copper: I should have rinsed in distilled water and acid bath for 30 seconds followed by sonic or mechanical cleaning (soap and toothbrush). However I just rinsed in tapwater and the residual plating solution left stains on the part. Stains were easily removed with a polishing cloth.
Okay, that's it for the copper plating. Going to wait a few days and see if the plating blisters or discolors before moving forward. The next step will be nickel plating followed by gold plating. I haven't ordered the gold electrolyte yet as I didn't want to buy it until I was more certain this was going to work.
So, the electrolyte is also on it's way. This is the cheapest bottle of gold electrolyte I could find. For some strange reason the 18K was cheaper than the 14K.
Very nice, i think the 14 is brighter, therefore more sought after. Strange 18 would be more precious.
The gold electrolyte is scheduled for delivery on 10/2. So the final nickel and gold plating will probably happen on Thursday. Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk
Most of the solutions I use are household cleaners and are safe to just dump down the drain. The acids need to be diluted and neutralized with baking soda first, but its safe to just dump those down the drain after neutralizing. The plating solutions replenish from the anode so can last for years. The included documentation says call your local EPA office for disposal guidelines. I stay away from more dangerous processes which produce hazardous waste. To prevent illegal dumping my city has an annual day when we can drop off hazardous household wastes for free. The only waste which concerns me is the stripping bath which is sulfuric acid containing stripped copper and nickel. I will turn than in on that day. Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk
It sounds like you have all the bases covered. Everything is fairly straightforward with the exception of the spent sulfuric acid. I'm glad you have access to a local household waste collection. I just delivered a trunk load of old paints, pesticides, and electronics to a similar event near my home. Thanks for letting us all follow along and learn from your plating project.
I am going to watch this thread. Putting lipstick on a pig is fun. You do a great job explaining the process too.
The verdict may be trash. While preparing the top plate I noticed bubbles in the acid bath. This indicates that the acid was in contact with zinc. I rushed through the rest of the steps hoping to get a good plate without contaminating the baths and ended up with poor adhesion on the nickel plate. The handle turned out beautiful, but the top plate is a mess. I will try to clean and prep again, but if I am dealing with exposed zinc, I can't finish. I did learn enough that I do feel like I can plate a brass razor. Perhaps I will share that. Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk
I am 99% sure I polished through the existing nickel plate on the corners and edges exposing zinc which I don't have the proper plating bath to repair. I must have done this after the copper plate because the copper plate went on so smoothly. So, here is what I will do. The handle looks amazing and plated with ease. I will buy another razor and just strip off the chrome and plate directly with gold. I had only plating with copper and then nickel for learning and demo purposes. Those steps were never necessary. Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk
