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I could use some advice here, these are somehow associated with what looks like a spot metal plating device but I don't really know anything about this stuff or the chemicals, the stuff sealed in the silver bag sounds ominous and is anybody here familiar with any of this stuff. the little brown plastic bottle where the label has disintegrated has about 3/8 of an inch of dark clear amber heavy liquid, i believe for plating gold???? Im not messing with any of it until im sure what it all is any ideas?

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Is the acid dip for pickling? If so there is a safer alternative at casswell that I use for pewter prior to antiquing. They also have more home version of the pen plating systems which work but are a bit cheesy.. wadd of bandage on a squashed metal tube hehe.

I never got into any full blown plating as the costs and disposal are just too high to make any kind of $$ at it and no way to compete with countries that have no epa. In any case use good ventilation with any plating, fumes aren't that healthy. Make some gold zinc pennies and toss em in corn field for fun 🙂

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On 9/2/2019 at 6:11 AM, kac said:

Is the acid dip for pickling? If so there is a safer alternative at casswell that I use for pewter prior to antiquing. They also have more home version of the pen plating systems which work but are a bit cheesy.. wadd of bandage on a squashed metal tube hehe.

I never got into any full blown plating as the costs and disposal are just too high to make any kind of $$ at it and no way to compete with countries that have no epa. In any case use good ventilation with any plating, fumes aren't that healthy. Make some gold zinc pennies and toss em in corn field for fun 🙂

The acid I’m not sure yet the container is still factory sealed with the dry acid waiting for the water to be added, the other cleaners go with this ionic cleaner.

The blue bottle is a factory sealed one quart bottle of one step 14K plating solution dated from 1992 probably fair amount of gold in the suspension? 

the little spray bottle’s probably harmless cleaner of some sort in that little pump bottle and the silver foil sealed package is a mystery but feels a bit like the box could hold a respirator of some fashion and that might explain the packaging.

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You typically don't need a respirator for small plating unless you plan on planting your face 2-3 inches from your work. There are modern alternatives that are much greener and safer if you plan on getting into it. One supplier I use is Contenti and other is Casswell. Contenti used to sell some environmentally safer plating materials.

Usually you would clean the part ie ultrsonic cleaner, rinse, pickle, rinse, copper plate, rinse, nickel plate, rinse, finish plate ie gold etc. then rinse.

Spot plating with a pen is pretty cool, I did a little bit for kicks. My accuracy was limited to the wad of bandages wrapped on the supplied squashed copper tube. The pen system you got looks like a high end unit.

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On 9/3/2019 at 12:52 PM, 1515Art said:

The blue bottle is a factory sealed one quart bottle of one step 14K plating solution dated from 1992 probably fair amount of gold in the suspension?

https://www.riogrande.com/product/midas-14k-yellow-bright-gold-plating-solution-acid-based/335053

"Solution contains 1 dwt. (1.56 grams) pure gold."

$1550/ozt * 1 ozt/20dpt = $77.50 as of right now.

 

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56 minutes ago, GB_Amateur said:

https://www.riogrande.com/product/midas-14k-yellow-bright-gold-plating-solution-acid-based/335053

"Solution contains 1 dwt. (1.56 grams) pure gold."

$1550/ozt * 1 ozt/20dpt = $77.50 as of right now.

 

thanks, 1.56 is much better than a sharp stick in the eye anytime in my book. not sure if I will be able to ship the plating solution, anyone ever try to send something like this in the mail, ups or fedx.

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 9/3/2019 at 10:20 AM, kac said:

You typically don't need a respirator for small plating unless you plan on planting your face 2-3 inches from your work. There are modern alternatives that are much greener and safer if you plan on getting into it. One supplier I use is Contenti and other is Casswell. Contenti used to sell some environmentally safer plating materials.

Usually you would clean the part ie ultrsonic cleaner, rinse, pickle, rinse, copper plate, rinse, nickel plate, rinse, finish plate ie gold etc. then rinse.

Spot plating with a pen is pretty cool, I did a little bit for kicks. My accuracy was limited to the wad of bandages wrapped on the supplied squashed copper tube. The pen system you got looks like a high end unit.

What got you into plating you obviously had it worked out pretty good seems if you want it to look professionally done there’s a lot of steps to go through like everything else.

Thanks for the warning I probably will never do any plating it does sound like you need to be cautious with all these chemicals that foil pack I was wondering about had CYANIDE under at least 4 layers of protection. Unwrapping when I hit the MSDS under the third layer of protection with several metal potassium cyanide’s listed I carefully put it all away. Now I gotta figure out what to do with it.

I remember Monsanto had a facility in Santa Clara back in the 1970’s where they made and stored a chemical called Parathion in 55 gallon drums. Hundreds of drums on large steel racks and roughly every 10 feet as you walked through the warehouse there were little boxes mounted eye level each with Eppi pens in case you accidentally came in contact with any of this chemical you had under a minute to get to one of those boxes and give yourself time to get to the emergency room or you’d be dead in minutes. They also had one building where the chemicals were so volatile the roof of the building it was made in was designed to blow off during explosions, time sure have changed. I inspected most of the plating shops in town back in the early days things were pretty loose and wild with not much regulation when you could do anything... we had a lot of fires and accidents back then and the combination of PVC tanks and immersion heaters burned down a lot of buildings.

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I was doing quite a bit of spin casting for pins, key chains etc in pewter. I looked into plating but it was simply not cost effective. Scary stuff back then I bet. I did work for a plating and anodizing company and remember when one of his sulfuric acid tanks decided to burst leaving the anodizing room 3ft deep in sulfuric acid! His rooms were epoxy coated to handle the spills.

Casswell and Contenti sell safer plating options that are more environmentally friendly for plating if that is even such a thing but at least they don't typically use cyanide. I thought cyanide was used when plating chrome but I forget. I don't believe it's needed for jewelry work.

Monsanto is a very shady company. I remember when they would have gm soybeans and would sue local farmers that bee's had inadvertently cross pollinated adjacent farms under patent infringements. These small farms would go bankrupt through the courts.

I could be wrong but believe they sold off to Bayer to avoid up coming lawsuits from carcinogens found in Round-Up.

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