Fiction stories involving plating

A. Hi Michael. The public understandably doesn't know very much about electroplating, so when writers want to include it in their stories, we're always delighted to give them the full story so whatever they end up including, they can get it right :-)

It is no problem at all to do what you describe. Areas where plating is not wanted can be "masked" with 'platers tape' (not too different from electricians black tape) or with spots of liquid maskants (sort of a paste that hardens in the air). That paste can optionally be applied through a 'silk screen' (sort of like a stencil) rather than by hand, too. Finally, the techniques used in circuit board manufacturing can be especially applicable for patterns and glyphs. A thin sheet of UV-sensitive translucent plastic, or sometimes a thin paste, covers the entire item. Then UV light passes through a photographic film of the patterns you want, and the masking hardens in desired areas and can be washed away where it's not wanted; then you plate the item with the masking in place, and there's no plating where the masking is. In all of these cases the masking can be removed after plating.

Luck & Regards,

Thank you very much. I had thought of all those techniques, and saw no reason they wouldn't work, but I wanted to confirm with people who actually know the subject.