How to make Gold Plated Roses, or Where to Buy Wholesale?

A. Hi, Bradley. Please start with the FAQ here on plating organic materials. Then talk to the suppliers of the lacquers and metallizing solutions. Try a search from our home page for additional related threads here. Try a computerized lit search at your library perhaps. Then get back to us please. Thanks.

A. Hello Brad,

Like you I have been in the electroplating industry for the past 7 yrs. I have been doing the gold/silver roses for about 2 years now.

Just to give you the basics, going from conductive plating to non-conductive plating is a very big step as far as prices for solutions and the paints used to make the rose conductive. One route is to call a company that sells the silver conductive paint (the cost is about $50.00 a gram). Or you can go the easy route like we do for our roses and order the metal form which is a copper conductive paint that sells for $48.00 for 8 oz. As far as sealing the roses some people use lacquer, but the rose tends to absorb the lacquer and that kills the rose, so what we use is an epoxy resin to seal the roses. Once you have the rose sealed, then apply your conductive paint either by brush or spray. Once the conductive paint is fully dry place in a cold copper solution over night. this will cause a micro thin shell of copper to be deposited on top of the conductive paint. On day two remove from the cold copper solution and inspect for coverage and any missed spots in the conductive paint (if you find missed spots in the paint then you need to repeat the cold plate solution.)

Now it is finally time to do the actual plating, or in this case electroforming, because you want to deposit a strong even plate on the rose. For the copper I strongly recommend that you order bright acid copper. Find a solution that is the best copper solution to improve the low current density areas. It is expensive but not as expensive as buying 10 different copper solutions that don't work. After the copper comes the bright nickel solution, you want this to come out of the bath as bright as possible without polishing, because gold plating solutions will mirror the surface they are plated over (i.e., dull nickel = dull gold). Then the gold is plated over the nickel.

And there you have it -- 4 days later and one gold rose. As far as times of plating and current values this is something you need to figure out on your own by trying different things. Don't get upset if you don't get it the first time or even the 10th time; you will get it though and when you do you will be one of a handful of people in the world that can do this.

Ed. note: Thanks, Michael. Very informative!

Anyone who can successfully gold plate fresh roses is no amateur, Mr. Kochhar :-)

A. Years ago I used a lacquer (Heavily thinned) with copper fines, cyanide copper, Acid copper, Bright nickel then gold. As far as racks, I used a box rack with tiny hooks. I tied copper wire on two ends of clovers/ parsley (that's what I plated).

If you keep the same amps per square inch of both anode to cathode and amps per item that you were presently using, you should be close to the same as presently running if all other.

Understanding that what you start with is what you will finish with, acid copper is fine grained and has great leveling properties.

A. Hi Gunter. If you can't follow Michael's suggestions because you aren't yet familiar with plating processes, equipment and terminology, please try the Metal Finishing Guidebook ⇨
This is a great technical and commercial introduction to electroplating. It's been available on-again & off-again on line, but getting a hard copy is worth the effort.

Regards,

A. It is difficult for us to know exactly what info you have vs. need, but for a general understanding of electroplating please get hold of a book on our Books page; perhaps start with the Metal Finishing Guidebook. Good luck!

A. Dear Elias,

Doing gold plating on real roses is very hard because first you have to do silver paint, then after it dries you have to do bright acid copper plating, then bright nickel plating, and then gold plating.

If you want to do thick gold plating then you can do directly on copper.

I have been using this stuff, and it is real very hard job: it takes at least 8 hours to finish 1 rose.

Once if you try, it'll be good to know how much time and how hard the job is.

Good luck.

A. Hi Adilson,

Firstly, I am not a plater ... but saw something interesting when we were last in Hawaii many moons ago.

They had gold plated leaves in the mall area ... and nearby was a plating shop.

Being interested (mainly in combating air pollution for chemical plants, etc.) I entered those premises ... I didn't get to see anything but was told that they only spend, I think, 5 minutes in a 'gold' bath.

This may well not work on roses, but quien sabe?

Food for thought, anyhow.

A. HELLO AND HERE IT IS.

WE DO GOLD BATH IN OUR MANUFACTURER IN BRAZIL AND IT WOULD BE VERY DIFFICULT TO DO IT IN A PLANT LIKE YOU ASK.
WE HAVE MANY TYPES OF ROSE PLATED 18K THAT ARE VERY SIMILAR TO WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT AND IF YOU LIKE PLEASE ASK ME ANY OTHER QUESTION THAT YOU MAY HAVE.
SINCERELY,

A. I have been plating gold roses since 1991. Every year I am plating, with my own hands, up to forty thousand roses, not only gold rose, but also platinum roses. I have supplied over 2,000 companies in the world with our rose products. If anyone interested in how to do it, please ask me. I would be very glad to share the information.

Ed. note -- Readers: please ask your questions of Maoyou (or anyone) publicly, and hopefully Maoyou will help as much as possible!
But this forum is for public discussions not private hookups; readers find it rude when threads they were interested in turn private and they're left hanging, so we don't facilitate that. Thanks for your understanding.

Hi, Anthony. I think you need to read a bit to get a general idea and a general vocabulary and then ask specific questions. She was invited to publicly share anything she was willing to; but people who are in a business generally can't tell the world their techniques without endangering that business if they wanted to, and it's probably not possible to distill years of experience down to a couple of paragraphs. Still, Michael P's suggestions sound right.

Regards,