Sound technical content, curated with aloha by
Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Pine Beach, NJ
The authoritative public forum
for Metal Finishing since 1989
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Home nickel plating with vinegar & salt
Quickstart:
Hobbyists are certainly welcome to try hobby plating, including nickel plating, especially if it's based on household vinegar rather than the more dangerous industrial chemicals. But we think it's unlikely to turn out well enough to please them, and extremely unlikely to provide any corrosion resistance whatsoever.
Plating with vinegar & salt is basically for school experiments so children can see the concept in action without fooling with dangerous chemicals. "Real" nickel plating is done with a Watts Nickel plating solution consisting of nickel sulphate, nickel chloride, boric acid, generic or proprietary brighteners & wetters, and sulfurized nickel anodes.
Please do your experiments and learning on scrap, not on something important to you.
Q. I tried to make a nickel sulphate solution and failed. I used 1 qt. distilled vinegar
⇦in bulk on
eBay
or
Amazon [affil links] , added salts, put my pure nickel anode and cathode into the solution and ran a current through it until a light green color was achieved. My first two objects I plated were some iron parts for a slot machine. The were scrubbed, degreased and washed in distilled water before being put into the bath. I plated them for about 45 minutes in 400 ml of nickel acetate in a 500 ml beaker [beakers on
eBay
or
Amazon [affil links] at 10V 950 mA. They came out perfect. Bright, smooth and even.
The next three parts I plated (pretreated in the same method) the plating came out darker and darker. The last of the three resembling iron oxide (it was also very hard to polish off) Now the next batch I tried, I thought maybe I had the voltage too high so I dropped it to 5.5v 750ma and it came out even worse. The nickel plating was extremely thick, uneven, gray and peeling back in curls. Though underneath, it appeared to have a thin, bright layer.
Any help would be appreciated greatly!
Here's the final results.
- Ventura, California
August 7, 2020
A. Hi Randall. If you have control over the things you think you do, then the difference between your first run and your third is what you don't have control over: the deterioration of your plating solution. So dispose of your old solution and make it up again or rejuvenate it.
The light green color hopefully means you have some nickel in solution ... but it's very little. Real nickel plating solutions are highly saturated deep emerald green. Your voltage is far higher than that low nickel concentration can sustain. Even 5.5 V is probably too high. I cannot explain satisfactory plating at 10 V in a very dilute nickel plating solution unless it is also low conductivity such that very little current is flowing. We cannot compute the current density with just the amperage without knowing the surface area.
Luck & Regards,
Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
Q. I would like to use this method to plate some skewers made of mild steel, would they be food safe after plating?
Thanks,
Retired but still curious - British Columbia
August 4, 2024
A. Hi E.
If well-rinsed, and if the plating adheres (which is not a sure thing), it would be food safe for skewers, although some people have a skin allergy to nickel. But I think you would be much happier with stainless steel skewers.
Also, I think it's best to learn plating one step at a time through practice on scrap, rather than trying to do functional plating out of the gate. Good luck.
Regards,
Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
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