Nickel Plating

[Sneakers]

I have a few small items that would benefit from re-plating. Watching a number of videos on plating makes it looks pretty easy, and I want to give it a try.

However, getting quality nickel for the plating process seems to be a little tougher. Sure, you can find it all over Amazon, etc.... Thing is... every vendor I find with what I want is from China. I refuse to buy another thing from them. I even looked into getting small nickel rivets to melt down, but it's melt point is way too high for a torch.

Does anyone have a local or reputable US source for nickel strips?

 

[Homer J]

Might be able to find something here. Nickel Suppliers

 

[Clem72]

Does it have to be strips for some reason? You could probably use nickel welding rods. Or hell, if the plating isn't for some special purpose (just to look nice and provide corrosion protection) you could use actual nickels. They are 25% nickel 75% copper, but the alloy had much of the same characteristics as pure nickel.

 

[Sneakers]

Does it have to be strips for some reason?

To start the plating process, you need nickel acetate. You make that by placing the wide strips in an acid solution and applying current. The strips have much more surface area than a rod, and work much better to create the acetate. Rods could work, but takes much longer. The more surface area, the better.

Things that are nickel plated only work up to a point, then the substrate contaminates the acetate.

 

[Sneakers]

You could probably use nickel welding rods.

Ok, not welding rods, but nickel welding wire. Had to stop at 3 Mules to get some propane refills (now up to $15/20lbs). He had Nickel 99 (high quality/purity) 3mmx36" wire for a couple of bucks. I'll make it work.

 

[Gilligan]

sounds like Ben fixed you up, but just for future reference, we use online metals.com for all our small-quantity buys of things like inconel, hastalloy and various titanium alloys. They have a wide range of nickel alloys and material sizes available.

 

[Sneakers]

sounds like Ben fixed you up, but just for future reference, we use online metals.com for all our small-quantity buys of things like inconel, hastalloy and various titanium alloys. They have a wide range of nickel alloys and material sizes available.

Couldn't have told me that yesterday, huh? Geeze......

 

[Sneakers]

Set everything up, applied current, walked away. Came back to see what's going on. Instead of a green color, the solution is quite yellow. Then I spotted some text on the rod, very small and easy to miss. Inconel 718.

Inconel 718 is a precipitation-hardenable nickel-chromium alloy containing also significant amounts of iron, niobium, and molybdenum along with lesser amounts of aluminum and titanium.

Arrgg.... not Nickel 99. The yellow color was the moly.

Well, I'll let it go for a while and see what results I get from an attempted plating with this.

 

[Gilligan]

Couldn't have told me that yesterday, huh? Geeze......

You already know the deal here...engineering is always at least a half a step behind sales dept....