Home cad-plating kits

[JHunter]

Has anyone purchased a home plating kit, and if so, would you comment on the quality and whether or not it's met your expectations. Thanks in advance!

[Zithlord]

I bought one from Cadwell, it was crap. I tried for days, but the kits are super sensitive about amps and surface measurements. Its now long gone, my local plater dos a perfect job at a reasonable price.

John

[JHunter]

Bad news. That was one of the kits I was looking at. Unfortunately where I live, plating isn't available. Thanks for the reply John.

[Zithlord]

Hunter, where do you live? I am sure someone here can help you with name of a local plater, or maybe you can send your parts to one of the members here, and they can have them delivered for you? I would help you, but I am located in Norway!!

BTW: I might have operated the Cadwell kit incorrectly, but I talked several times to their representative in the UK and also the used the plating forum. Maybe you will have better skills on this....


John

[Gearbox]

All the home plating kits are faux cold plating systems and not the hot toxic stuff you need for real cad. This is true of the Cadwell systems as well. The home systems are just a electrosys process where the cad material is slowly disolved in distilled water and attached to the part via low voltage power source. I gert a kick when I see the prices of some of these kits, $200 for 5 bucks of material and a power source. You can acually zinc plate parts with a couple of D size batteries and a zinc electrode (strip of zinc). Just attach the + to the part and the - to the zinc and suspend both in distilled water mixed with a base like baking soda. You can also de-rust parts by reversing the polarity and using a battery charger. The cold plating has its uses for some applications, but if you want real CAD, send it out to a plater, it's not that expensive. Good luck.

[JHunter]

Thanks for the replys. I'm in Hawaii, and plating, except for chrome, is non-existent. Even then, it's so expensive it's hardly worth doing. I'm sure it's related to the disposal fees. I appreciate the candor about the home kits. They are pricey, and I was very close to pulling the trigger. I was hoping to avoid the added cost of shippig to the mainland.

[Gearbox]

Hawaii huh? How horrible, Palm trees, blue skies, white sandy beaches with those perfect waves, unlike the utopia here in New Jersey where platers are within 10 min drives, and powder coating, sand blasting, and anything else goes. If you do some searching, you will probably find a forum or someone who has posted the information on what you need and where to source the materials for actual cost. As I mentioned before, a car battery charger or any 9 volt charger will work as the power source, variable will be be better and I think you could still get that at Radio Shack or any electronics parts store. The Zinc is easy to get, but I'm not sure what they are using for the gold, orange, and green tints for the CAD. The solution is just distilled water with a little baking soda. I use the Arm and Hammer washing soda which works great with zinc. So if you can find out what they are using for the colors, your home free. Now with this being said, another alternative would be to use Eastwood's CAD in a can system, a series of spray paints that mimic a CAD look. Needless to say, not as good as CAD, but on small parts, it's not bad. Plus it's inexpensive. Here's a pic of my 911 fan with the Eastwood product used in the center since I wasn't interested in drilling out the hub for plating. Good luck Allan

[JHunter]

Thanks Allan. I was thinking about the Eastwood product. Some of the home plating supplyers have the additive available for the color. Maybe I'll try to fashion my own system first, and see what happens.
On another note-- Yeah, the ocean and waves are a big plus. Unfortunately, local politics has caused some alarm with regards to the beaches on Oahu. Seems the dollars allocated for upgrading or just maintaining the sewer system, have gone elsewhere. When you couple that with non-stop development, the result has been major dumping of raw sewage into the ocean, especially after heavy rains. We've had to close beaches several times this year as a result. The latest issue is mass-transit. Seems our small island needs fixed rail. Pretty soon we'll be just like New Jersey. Paradise isn't what it used to be.

[J-P]

Just watch a few reruns of Hawaii Five-O and it will absolutely break your heart when you see what your state used to offer.

Just like Cali and so many other places now.

[WM711]

I bought one from Sampson technologies, its been just great. I also bought a Zinc plating kit which works equally as well. I like the way Cad stuff comes out better than Zinc, even if it is not 100% correct. Lots of steps, and you are messing around with Cyanide with Cd in solution, and Muratic Acid for stripping old plating, a pretty bad (deadly) combination if mixed. Ive got some photos if interested. Bill