Sound technical content, curated with aloha by
Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Pine Beach, NJ
The authoritative public forum
for Metal Finishing since 1989
-----
Gold Plating of Lead
Quickstart:
The main issue with gold plating of lead, or plating of lead with any metal, is good adhesion. For proper adhesion we must plate metal onto metal, not onto an oxidized surface, and lead oxides can only be removed with acids based on fluoride like hydrofluoric or fluoboric acid.
Q. Were you ever able to successfully gold plate your lead? I am also interested in doing this. Thanks.
Chris Bruni- Ontario
August 26, 2024
A. Try old ferrocyanide plating bath (1842.),I think that it must work (2,65 gms gold chloride/15 gms potassium ferrocyanide/ 15 gms sodium carbonate/ 1 lit water, SS anodes).Hope it helps and good luck!
Goran Budija- Cerovski vrh Croatia
⇩ Related postings, oldest first ⇩
Q. Hello,
I am wondering if there is some way to gold plate lead. I use bright acid plating solutions and I take the clean lead and copper strike it, nickel plate it, and then finish it with 24k GP. However, it works on one only, after that the chemical becomes contaminated and won't gold plate anymore. Any info would be appreciated.
Glenn King- Port Charlotte, Florida, U.S.A.
2002
A. Hi Glenn,
I am not understanding why a nickel plated surface should contaminate a gold bath. If you would give us some more background info our guesses might be more educated.
But as a first impression, either you are nor properly copper and nickel plating, and are exposing the gold plating solution to lead, which is causing a contamination problem, or maybe you are using up most of the gold content on that one item. What is the volume of the gold plating solution and it's advertised concentration or gold content when you buy it; how big (surface area) is the item you are plating; what is your target gold plating thickness; and how do you know you are getting it? From this we can calculate whether you used most of the gold or little of it.
Regards,
Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
Q. Dear Sirs,
I would like to know whether a product that is tin plated entirely can then be plated with gold locally or not. The base material is C5191. My supplier said that the molten tin is very easy to dissolve with gold. I just want to know is that true or not. And they suggested that it can be only plated with nickel first & then gold plated. Is it the only way for our requirement.
please Help!
Stamper - HK
2005
A. Why not -- according to one old book you can plate gold directly on tin or pewter (You must use potassium_ferrocyanide based electrolyte, so called Elsners bath:
15 gm potassium ferrocyanide
⇦ this on
eBay
or
Amazon [affil links]
,
15 gm sodium carbonate
⇦ this on
eBay or
Amazon]
/water free/,
1 lit water,
2,65 gm gold chloride,
SS anodes).
Good luck!
- Zagreb,Croatia
Q. I am interested in purchasing a gold plating system and have heard that it is very difficult to gold plate lead. What is the difference as long as they conduct electricity
Alan EricksonGuideschoice - Kingsford, Michigan, USA
2005
A. Hi Alan,
Doing electroplating is about as easy or hard as playing a piano; it all depends on how well you want to do it :-)
But electroplating is not shrinkwrap, and getting plating to adhere to lead requires an active substrate which you can't achieve without fluoride chemicals like hydrofluoric acid or at least fluoboric acid. In the opinion of most platers, hydrofluoric acid is the nastiest and most dangerous stuff in their world.
Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
A. Lead can be gold plated, try direct gold plating with ferrocyanide based plating solution. You can remove oxide layer with 2-5% nitric acid. If you want You can underplate with copper and/or nickel. Try it on some test specimens (salt spray test).
Goran Budija- Cerovski vrh Croatia
A. Ideally the parts should be copper plated then nickel plated before gold plating. This will give you the nicest finish and the best adhesion.
Good luck,
- St. Louis, Missouri, USA
! Please remember that it is illegal to forge gold coinage by gold plating lead!
Steve Ciarico- Webster, New York, USA
November 14, 2011
Q. I make my own fishing lures (soft lead jigs) and desire to gold plate them as I have seen on the retail shelves. Can someone tell me how this may be inexpensively done?
Jay JerisekHobbyist - Elyria, Ohio, U.S.A.
2006
A. Try leaf gilding--except paint (pure gold powder is very expensive) only way to gilt lead in do-it-yourself style. Good luck and hope it helps!
Goran Budija- Cerovski vrh Croatia
2006
A. You can apply a "gold look" gold colored paint inexpensively, Jay, but if you want true gold plating you probably have to send them to a plating shop. Gold plating of lead is beyond the skills of most hobbyists.
Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
2006
Q. I have a mining lab and been electrowinning gold. Reading the posts above about depositing gold on lead, it would be real helpful using gold coated lead for cementation and electrowinning. Then it could go straight to the furnace and cupel out the lead.
Does any one sell a gold coated lead product? Or a step-by-step process to coat. Would immersion plating work for coating lead?
Assay and Refining Lab - Baker City, Oregon, USA
November 30, 2017
by Reid & Goldie
(hard to find & expensive; if you
see a copy cheap, act fast)
on eBay or
AbeBooks
or Amazon
(affil links)
A. Hi Chuck,
I don't know anyone who sells such a thing as a standardized item, but many plating job shops are capable of gold plating lead. Plating it without any underlayer of copper or nickel sounds more difficult though.
Gold can be immersion deposited on lead according to Reid & Goldie ⇨
but immersion plating is very limited in thickness (because as soon as the lead has a very thin coating the process will stop), and it sounds wasteful of gold because at some point the bath will be so loaded with lead that it won't work well even though it still has gold in it and you'll probably want to recover that gold.
Luck & Regards,
Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
Ed. note: Readers may also be interested in thread 30597, "Prepping & plating lead fishing lures?"
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