How can I gold plate my copper lures for fishing

If you are not careful you could easily become a dead huuby and dad! Gold plating is not easy - it uses cyanide that not only kills people it also kills your fish. You have to be extremely careful when using cyanide and you must know exactly what you are doing. I would strongly recommend you look in the telephone directory for a plating shop that does gold, ring them up and offer them some of your jewellery as the source of your gold. They will have the technology and knowledge to do this safely. The gold source is the most expensive part of gold plating, so the costs to you could well be very low; at least it will be much cheaper than the bill you would receive if you polluted your water supply and killed your beloved fish!

Traditionally, gold is plated from a cyanide solution. There are other makeups available, but they tend to be pickey for the rank amateur.
Cost to have the material gold plated will be less than the setup would cost. True, the anode is gold, but the solution is made up from gold salts. The tanks have to be routinely analyzed which is another cost. The killer cost is the disposal of the haz wastes that you will generate.
The voltage needs to be critically controlled as well as the amperage. A battery simply will not work for quality work.
Search for an affordable plater to send it off to.

Greetings.
You might find this advice a little irritating, but believe me: you should not try to do this job yourself. Chemicals involved are hazardous (I won't dare to mention them). Sorry, this is not something you can do in your garage. Take your stuff with a professional. Right Ted? Good fishing!

If you really want to that, you can use next solution-1 gm gold chloride(you can dissolve it in mixture of 3 parts hydrochloracid and 1 part nitric acid)70 gm sodium phosphate and 2,5 gm sodium sulphite/1 lit water.Use stainless steel anodes and up to 6 V current.Hope it helps and good luck!

Karl,
Gold plating is something a lot of people think would be cool and exciting to do, and I agree that it is. When you said you had gold jewelry items to sacrifice, did you plan to sell them or use them as an anode? I would NOT use them as anodes for your gold metal supply in the solution. If you want the job done right there should be a nickel plate between the copper and the gold to prevent the copper migrating into the surface of the gold plate. There are also cleaning and activation steps that have to be followed. By the time you buy all the chemicals and equipment you need to complete this project it would be less expensive to sell the jewelry you have, use that money to have the lures plated by a plating jobshop in your area.
Now that I have put the pin in your balloon, I should at least answer your questions. A six volt battery would be sufficient for a power supply as long as you are flash coating in gold (about 5 microinches thick). As far as chemical make-ups go, there are one quart gold solutions available "ready to use" in various colors and gold concentrations. Keep in mind that these chemicals are not advisable to keep in your home. The gold is normally a cyanide based chemical. You have to worry about storage, handling and disposal. Good luck to you and please be careful!