replicating cad and zinc finishes

[Michael F.]

has anyone tried zinc or silver cad plating paints from eastwood. I am trying to replicate the original finish, anyway to actually cad plate something that will be like original finish. Thanks.

[Gary S.]

Re: replicating cad and zinc finishes

Mike, I can't speak for the actual home replating of these parts but I have seen numerous gold and silver cad simulated paints. They look like they have been painted. Period! You will not replicate the look of the original plating process with any of of the paints that I have seen. Acceptable looking for a driver but no one, even the unitiated, will assume that this is the original look. The gold cad paints I have seen include the three part process, with gold, silver, and green, and also include the single stage. Unfortunately, the representation of these paints is exagerated, imho.
Gary

[Tracy C.]

Re: replicating cad and zinc finishes

These kits look intresting. I wish someone would give them a go and let us know the results.....




Home Plating Kits

[John M.]

Re: replicating cad and zinc finishes

Tracy,
I have been using Caswell's plating setup for over 5 years and can achieve any look necessary from dull cad look to bright zinc with a gold dichromate finish. The learning curve is a little steep, but with a enough practice, you can get expert looking results. The advantage of being able to plate a couple of small parts anytime you want rather than waiting for a large enough load to take to the platers is enough to make the setup worthwile. The only parts that I sent out for plating on my 60 were the seat tracks since my tank was not large enough to accept them, and I thought that they were the worst looking plating on the car! I now have large enough tanks to accept such parts.

Regards, John McGraw

[Eugene B.]

Re: replicating cad and zinc finishes

Michael,
I have tried two Eastwood products: Clear Zinc and Silver Cad. I do not wish to publically "bad mouth" their products, but I will honestly tell you that I was not satisfied with either. They would never pass a judge's scrutiny.

Regards,
Gene

[Tracy C.]

Re: replicating cad and zinc finishes

Thanks John,

I've had similar experience with local plate shops. They care mostly about volumn orders. My piece meal stuff doesn't excite them much and they get rude when I complain about imperfections. (we vette people are tough customers I guess)

Have you done any chrome work at home yet?

tc

[John M.]

Re: replicating cad and zinc finishes

Tracy,
I have passed on the chrome setup. It takes up a lot of space and has some pretty corrosive chemicals associated with it. The key to chrome work is the prep and not in the plating. The other problem is that most of the parts you would plate are large and require large tanks and power supplies, and I am not willing to give up that much space in my shop. I usually strip , grind and buff all my parts before sending them out for plating to keep the price down and the quality up. My local plater can usually do a pretty good job if I supply him parts with the base metal well polished, but If I allow his guys to do it I am usually displeased with the visable abbrasive scratches.

Regards, John McGraw

[Michael F.]

Re: replicating cad and zinc finishes

thanks all, you pretty much confirmed what I thought to be true.
John, where did you get your plating kit, material, etc. I would like to give it a try. Thanks again for all the imputs.

[Rob A.]

Re: replicating cad and zinc finishes

I have used Eastwood's "electroplating" kit and their "blackening" kit. they work well for small items, bolts, brackets. You can vary the degree of brightness after it has been plated to either look more like zinc or cad. The blackening kit works well also for small items. I hightly recommend it for small jobs, where you find you need to replate an item in order to reassemble it without a lengthy delay. Use a heavier duty battery than the ones that come with the kit and you'll get better results. If you buff the silver items after plating them with very fine steel wool you'll be happy with the results.

[John M.]

Re: replicating cad and zinc finishes

Michael,
I use Caswell's setup, check Tracy's post above for a link.

Regards, John McGraw

[Todd H 26112]

Re: replicating cad and zinc finishes

John,

I like that approach of doing as much as possible before taking a part into the plater for chrome.

Can you provide some tips on how a DIYer might 'strip' a previous chrome job or deal w/ (rust) pitting prior to polishing and having something plated? For example I have an air cleaner cover that apparently was re-chromed years ago but done very poorly. There are pits visibile from original rust under teh 2nd chrome job and some new rust is also formed since. If you are dealing with things like pitting and/or poor 're'plating - how would you recommend a DIYer strip and fill in pits and polish the metal as much as possible before taking it into a shop for the actual chrome?

thanks,

[Joe L.]

Re: replicating cad and zinc finishes

michael------

The biggest problem with any sort of home plating has to do with surface preparation of the parts BEFORE plating. When the parts were originally plated, they were NEW and had a "clean" finish. All that needed to be done by the plater was to clean off any oily residue from manufacturing and plate the parts.

When re-plating parts, you don't start with a nice, "clean" part. The parts must be impeccably cleaned from any surface discoloration or any "spec" of previous surface finish. This is especially critical for black oxide or black phosphate finished parts. If there are surface imperfections in the part due to corrosion, etc., the plating will NOT "cover them up"------it will highlight and accentuate said imperfections.

Usually, the most difficult part of plating is getting the finish of the parts sufficiently clean and regular. That's why most commercial platers may not do a satisfactory job for most of us. They're used to dealing with NEW parts that don't need much preparation before plating. Surface preparation of USED parts is a time consuming and difficult effort and is "out of sync" with their normal operations.

[John M.]

Re: replicating cad and zinc finishes

Michael,
Joe is absolutely correct. I have learned by trial and error that any shortcuts in the prep process will come back to bite you on the ass! The process that I now use is (1.) Bead blasting to remove most of the plating, rust and crud. (2.) An acid dip in muriatic acid to remove all traces of the cad plating. (3.)Buffing the part with a nonwowen abrasive wheel to smooth the surface and get rid of the blasted look. (4.)Another quick acid bath,rinse, followed by imediate plating.
I learned the hard way that not using the acid bath will soon render your solution unusable. The cad residue will contaminate the bath and will cause your new zinc plate to blister and peel off in a couple of days. Since switching over to the acid cleaning bath, I have had no problems.
The dichromate process however, is just something you will have to just play with until you get a feel for how long a part has to sit before rinsing to achieve the desired level of gold hue if any. Unfortunately the part will change color and get slightly darker gold as the part dries, so the look after it comes out of the dip does not necessarily correspond the the finished look.

Regards, John McGraw

[Gary B.]

John: Clarification please on abrasive wheel

John,

In your message you say "Buffing the part with a nonwowen abrasive wheel to smooth the surface and get rid of the blasted look." Can you be more specific about what type of abrasive wheel you use? Something like a Scotchbrite?

Thanks,

Gary

[John M.]

Re: John: Clarification please on abrasive wheel

Gary,
The wheels that I use are a cousin to scotchbrite and are made by 3M as well. In the metal working industry they are commonly refered to as convolute or deburring wheels and are available in several different hardnesses and several different abrasive grits. They conform to parts and do not leave the agressive scratch pattern of a normal abrasive. The softer the wheel the better it conforms to the part, but it does not last as long. I use several different wheels depending on the material and the shape of the part. A good all-arround wheel will be a medium hardness wheel with a fine or very fine rating and if you are planning on doing any stainless steel, go ahead and buy silicone carbide abrasive as opposed to aluminum oxide. I buff a lot of stainless parts, so I only buy SC wheels now.

Regards, John McGraw