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Very fundamental electroplating apparatus

Can any body help me to get for my iron earrings to be golden plated. What basic or fundamental apparatus I need to electroplate iron wire made earrings.ALSO KNOWLEDGE of salts used.

AFSAR SHA
imitation jewelry - Dublin, Ireland
2005

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2005

Some things are relatively easy, some things are not. Gold plating is one of those areas which are not easy, and where you need a lot of background. For example, you are not going to plate gold directly onto steel, so you need nickel plating (or equivalent) first. But nickel plating may be illegal on earrings, so now you probably need to do a tri-metal white plating first. You will not be able to formulate that yourself (and you probably should not try to formulate the gold solution either).

The first choice would be to farm out the plating to jobshops who exist for that purpose. The second choice would be to locate a supplier of gold plating processes and see if they can give you enough instruction for this to be feasible; you will never learn it from internet postings. Good luck!

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey

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2005

You can use next solution:
2,65 gm gold chloride
15 gm potassium ferrocyanide ⇦ this on eBay or Amazon [affil links]
15 gm potassium carbonate
1 lit water, stainless steel anodes
Low alloyed steel can be plated directly, stainless sorts must be activated. potassium ferrocyanide ⇦ this on eBay or Amazon [affil links] is much less toxic than potassium cyanide(o,5% of its toxicity).As cheap current source you can use hobby drill transformer.This bath is very stable and simple to prepare, and it is much cheaper than any proprietary solution.

Good luck!

Goran Budija
- Cerovski vrh Croatia

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2005

You can use next solution:
15 gm potassium ferrocyanide ⇦ this on eBay or Amazon [affil links]
15 gm potassium carbonate(water free)
2,65 gm gold chloride
1 lit water
stainless steel anode,4 v; o,6 A/dm2
This bath is very stable and simple to prepare (dissolve ferrocyanide in boiling water, add carbonate and then add gold, boil 30-180 minutes, add evaporated water, when cold filter it and you can use it). Potassium ferrocyanide is much less toxic than potassium cyanide(o,55 of its toxicity).You can plate low alloyed steel directly, stainless sorts must be activated.As cheap current source You can use hobby drill transformer.

Good luck!

Goran Budija
- Cerovski vrh Croatia

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Your knowledge of these generic plating solutions constantly amazes me, Goran. But I will be very surprised in Afsar can make acceptable jewelry by plating gold directly onto steel. Please let us know how it turns out, Afsar.

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
2005

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Dear Ted!
According to old German book Hand und Hilfsbuch fuer Praktischen Metallarbeiter( Handbook for practical metalworker,Wien 1900.,very good and interesting book) with this type of plating bath you can plate directly on iron, steel, copper and its alloys, zinc and pewter. Gold plating on steel is Afsar's decision.

Goran Budija
- Cerovski vrh Croatia
2005