We would just like to thank all our customers for their support last year and to wish you all a Happy New Year.

 

We have one or two new products in the pipe line and will have more information in the following weeks. 

 

 

 

We have had an extremely busy summer! With articles in Old Bike Mart and in a couple of other monthly magazines showing our kits in action this has sparked extra interest and meant that I have not had so much time to keep the news of developments up to date!

 

The zinc /nickel plating kits have proved a big success.

 

Building on the passivation side of zinc plating and zinc alloy plating, we also have black passivate in stock. It will be listed with the other passivates on the replacement items page over the next few days.

 

We have found a new supplier of titanium wire and titanium baskets for hanging anodes in and on.

This means that the price of the wire has dropped significantly.

 

My son David has also joined us in the business which should give me some extra time for research and will also mean we can extend or range of products further.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Ultimate Zinc plating kit is now on the zinc plating kit page. This kit includes; an extra zinc anode, four 10 litre tubs, tank heater, air agitation pump, tank filter and a pre-plating pickle.

The ultimate brush plating kit has also been updated to include 5 extra solutions and 4 more wands.

 

We will be soon launching a new zinc/nickle plating kit. As far as I am aware we will be the only company in the UK that will offer this type of kit. The advantage of this kit is that it can give up to 10 times the corrosion resistance of zinc alone when tested with the salt spray test. You can still use the passivates to colour the zinc and increase the corrosion resistance.

 

I have also been developing an immersion rust remover which, so far, has given very good results. It is an acid based remover but saying that, it is relatively safe to use and unlike HCL based removers will not attack the base metal. It should be listed before Christmas.

 

The snow this week has delayed deliveries a little but we are back on track again now and there is still time to get your orders in before Christmas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have also added a page containing electroforming products which includes; our bright copper electroforming kit, copper and graphite electroforming paint, acrylic sealer and copper and graphite electroforming powder.

 

 

 

 

 

I have been busy developing several items which have now been added to the site!

 

In our plating kits section along with the zinc, replica chrome, nickel, bright nickel and brass I have now added a bronze plating kit.

The bronze plating kit can be used in a similar way to our brass plating kit. It is ideal for putting a flash plate of bronze over either bright nickel or replica chrome, giving a very bright shiny bronze finish. It can also be used to put a thicker plate on for making fake bronze.

 

I have also added orange anodising dye and green anodising dye. Purple anodising dye is on the way and it should be here next week.

 

The electroforming kit is ready to go. I just want to finish taking some photos and it will be listed on the site soon, along with conductive paints and powders.

 

I have added titanium wire to the wire section in the replacement items page. Titanium wire can be used for hanging anodes on or for use when hanging items for anodising.

When hanging anodes with titanium it allows you to completely submerge them in the plating electrolyte. This means you can achieve a more even spacing and a more even current density.

 

Fume control balls have also been added to the accessories page. They can be used with any of our 5 litre plating kits or anodising kits and help lower the fume emission while plating or anodising.

 

I have also been working on a cyanide free silver plating solution. Our silver brush plating kits now contain cyanide free solutions so anyone wanting a safer way to silver plate can now do that. With the silver brush plating kit you get a stainless steel wand as standard. This is fine for use with the cyanide free silver solution but if you want to prolong the life of the silver solution you can use a silver wand which we have listed in our replacement items section of the website.

 

Coming soon will be an anodising sealer and an ultimate anodising kit.

 

 

 

 

I have had a lot of people ask about plating non metalic items so I have been developing an electroforming kit along with conductive paints.  This will allow you to copper plate non metalic items such as shells, ceramics, leaves, stones, modeled itmes, baby shoes and much more.

 

To plate these items they are first treated with a sealing lacquer if porous. This is followed by a conductive paint or a conductive powder and allowed to dry well.

The item is then plated slowly to allow the plating to cover the paint.

 

Once the item has been copper plated it can then be re plated to change the colour and finish with any of our plating kits. So if you want to gold plate some shells or silver plate a leaf then this is easily possible.

 

I will add some photos to the projects page of electroformed items so you can see some examples.

 

The kit will be added soon along with the conductive paints.

 

At the moment our paints will only work with the tank plating system but I am trying to get a High quality sliver conductive paint that will allow brush plating techniques to be used.

 

 

 

 7th June 2010

 

I have added a few more items today.

 

Bright Acid Copper plating chemicals have now been added to the replacement items page along with a full range of brush plating wands.

 

The brush plating wands are mostly true to type metal wands. These brush plating wands allow you to not only plate faster but also deposit a more pure plate.

The added advantage of true to type metal wands is that it allows to use the brush plating solution over and over again as the metal in the solution is replaced by the metal from the wand. The execptions are the gold and silver which use stainless steel in the wand and cobalt which can be used with either nickel or stainless steel.

 

I have been asked to put more picture or videos of different plating types onto the website. I have added a new project onto the project page, this is of a belt buckle restoration! then blinged up with one of our gold brush plating kits! you will see what I mean!

 

I am still putting the final touches to the videos so should be up soon! ish!

 

 

 

 

We have added quite a few more items since my last update! Most of these are on the replacement items page and include a full range of replacement brush plating solutions which includes; gold, silver, replica chrome, nickel, zinc, copper, cobalt, brass and bronze, we also have the cleaners on there too.

 

To our tank plating kits we have added a brass  plating kit priced at £55.

We will also be adding a Bronze plating kit and a Gold plating kit to the other tank plating kits quite soon.

 

We have been filming more plating videos, they are in the production process at the moment and hopefully should be up on the site soon!.  Quite a few people have commented on the brush plating one saying that they found it quite usefull so we will be adding a zinc tank plating video as well as a Replica Chrome, a flash brass plating one and a gold plating one.

 

The Desmut for cleaning and preparing aluminium and aluminium alloys has been added to our cleaning products page.

 

We hope to have a full range of Hyperbright cleaners and polishes listed soon, it is getting to show time again so I know a lot of people will be soon hard at work on show prep!.

 

I have been adding more information to the hints and tips section. If there are any other plating related topics that you would like to see let me know and I will add them, or if you have any tips then let me know and I will add them to the section.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It has now been rectified and you will find the GP Chrome Stripper listed in the Cleaning Products section.

I find it excellent for stripping chrome as it is not as agressive on the base metal as some of the strong acid types of chrome stripper. I do not recommend it for use as a de plating solution but on items that I left in the tank for long periods while testing the effects of long stripping times , I found that it will also remove nickel and copper!

 

 

 

We now have a range of gold and silver brush plating kits. We have been testing these solutions over the past month and are confident of their ease of use and quality of plating.

 

The gold plating brush plating solution is 22ct gold and is very easy to plate on a range wide range of metals including: stainless steel, steel, iron, copper, brass, nickel, replica chrome, silver, bronze and even zinc.

 

The silver brush plating solution is also very easy to use and will plate onto the same range of metals as the gold brush plating solution. It is not a fully bright solution so will require a light polish after plating to bring out the full depth of shine but the lack of brightener also makes it easier to plate and less effected by temperature.

 

We have a combination of gold, silver and nickel solutions within the kits but if there are specific solutions or amounts of solutions that you require then just let us know and we can give you a quote.

 

We have found that both the gold and the silver plate extremely well over bright nickel.  Bright nickel also acts as a barrier when plating when applied to copper stopping bleed through into the gold and silver. The nickel also gives excellent levelling and brightening so allows the gold to appear even deeper.

 

Chrome stripper will soon be added to our cleaning product section.  It is caustic based and requires a 12V power supply such as a battery charger or 12V battery and some form of steel for use as a cathode.  Full instructions are included as always along with a stripping tank and enough chrome stripping salts to make 10 litres of solution. It is priced at £9.99 and can be used time after time so makes it very economical to use.  It will strip most decorative chrome in less than an hour.

 

We have had several customer enquire about filtration in the plating tanks, most commercial platers use a filtration system with their tanks so we have been testing a filtration system that is driven by air from an air agitation pump. It is a very simple system but works very well and in conjunction with our dual output air pump can deliver both agitation and filtration.  The Filters will soon be listed in our accessories section.

 

The aluminium de smu twill soon be listed in our anodise stripper and etch section listed at £9.99 it is competitively priced and includes instructions and a de smut tank.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If there are any other colours that you want and are not shown, contact me and I will let you know when we can get them.

 

 

 

Using some form of constant agitation while plating is very important, which makes the air pump a very important piece of equipment.

 

We have also added the Neutral Nickel strike electrolyte chemicals to the replacement items page.

These should be used as a strike plate onto potmetal or mazak before any other form of plating.

 

 

 

 

 

We will start off with a mid blue, deep black, gold and fiery red  but will offer a full range covering most colours and shades eventually.

 

There will be a range of pack sizes that will make from 1-10 litres of dye 

 

Below are the shades for the above colours, these are the shades for different g/litre (strengths) and immersion times.

 

 

 

 

Copper anodes, Brass anodes and Lead anodes/cathodes  are now listed on the anodes page.

as normal they are all priced very fairly!

 

We have added another brush plating kit to our range. It is a Bronze brush plating kit and gives a true bronze plate "not just a bronze colour"! Where possible with our brush plating wands, we always try to make them of the same metal type as the plating solution as this increases the speed of deposit and also the purity of the plating. Our bronze brush plating kit is no exception and includes a bronze wand.

 

We still have a gold brush plating kit and a silver brush plating kit in the pipeline which will hopefully be out soon!!!

 

The brass plating kit is ready for sale and although not listed on the site yet, it is for sale now at £55 and includes enough electrolyte to make a 10 litre kit. The items included in the kit are similar to the zinc plating kit as it will include a brass passivate which will eliminate the brass wanting to tarnish.

 

We also have neutral nickel strike electrolyte chemicals available now.  These come in salt form that will make up to 5 litres and cost £20. The neutral nickel strike is used for plating onto zinc alloys such as pot metal and mazak.  It takes about 15-20 to put on a thin plate that can be over plated with copper, nickel or replica chrome. It is a very useful addition for any home plater or restorer.   Pot metal has been used a lot for various car and bike parts over the years and is impossible to plate with normal plating baths. So now you can plate it yourself no need to send it away.

 

We also de ox, de smut for anodising kits just contact me for a price, again it will be up on the site soon!!

 

We have been testing a range of plating power supplies and can now get hold of 10 and 30 amp variable voltage power supplies. The will be on the site soon! and work out about £75-80 for the 10 amp and £95-100 for the 30 amp one.

They are very robust with cooling fans and short circuit protection. I have tested them and rate them as very good. Contact me if you are interested in one.

 

 

All forms of plating will benifit from heating the electrolyte, some more than others, check out the tips section for temperature guides.  we have two types in stock at the moment,  75w which is shorter and is ideal for the 5 litre tank and 100w which is better suited for a 10 litre tank .  Should you require a higher wattage heater for a larger tank please contact us for a price.

 

 

There will be two or three different grades that will cover most applications.

 

The Brass tank plating kit is now ready and will be for sale next week, it will be for sale in two forms,  a brass plating kit and also as a Replica Gold plating kit this will combine nickel and brass and a special sealer that is applied post plating to keep that gold look and stop tarnishing that can be a problem with brass.

 

The brass plating kit can be used to apply a thin decorative coat over many different metals or as a thicker coat that can be polished of lacqured.

 

With the Replica Gold Kit you will be able to plate hundreds of items at a fraction of the price gold plating.

You will be able to put a heavy plate, which will stand a lot more wear or a thin decorative plate over nickel still with outstanding corrosion resistance but also with a high gold lustre and once sealed it will keep its shine.

 

We are often asked about air pumps for agitation in the plating tank. We will be selling two different pumps, one will be a standard pump and the other will be a higher output pump for use in larger tanks both will include a bubble wall which will spread the bubbles across the tank and increase agitation and flow of electrolyte arround the tank.

 

Anodising dyes will also be for sale in the near future again we are still trying to find a supplier of high quality dyes at a reasonable price. As always in the finishing industry, size matters!!!! and even though we buy reasonable amounts people can't be bothered to quote on what they see as a small amount!!! anyway that's my rant for the day!!