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24k Gold plating on plastic PlayStation 3

Hello,

I am new in brush electroplating business. I need advice about one subject.
One of my customer asks me to plate his playstation 3 with 24k gold. There are some parts which have been already plated chrome so I can strip it of and plate on nickel there. But to the other parts, which is black painted... I have no idea about how to plate them.

Same problem comes to my mind with Iphones, I can plate metal border of Iphone but if a customer asks for full coating, how can I coat these black parts?

I made a small research and found that there are conductive paints. Should I apply these condactive spray paints to the black painted surfaces?

Best Regards,

Keyz Cohen
Hobbyist - Athens & Greece
July 8, 2010

Hi, Keyz. You've learned that when someone else has done 98 percent of the work, by providing a quality nickel plating job, and your only job is to strip a few millionths of chrome off of it and replace it with a few millionths of gold, it's relatively easy. Yes, it is much much harder to plate onto other things. Even if you successfully metallize the item, your gold won't be shiny because you don't have a shiny leveled layer of nickel plating under it :-(

We have an FAQ on Metallizing Organic Materials that can give you a start towards understanding the various approaches you could take. I certainly don't want to discourage you from expanding your business into these other areas, but as a practical matter you might be better off concentrating on sales to people who want what you can offer, than trying to learn how to do a whole host of difficult things that may not keep you positioned where you were enjoying yourself.

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
July 8, 2010