Ammunition & Hand Loading > Cartridge and Shotshell reloading
Copper Plating
unfy:
Plating in progress with all of the new pieces.
Aquarium heater heating the solution to 80-90f.
Motor spinning basket.
Power supply spitting out ~1.7v.
100 bullets that took 80 min to rough up are plating \o/.
its 1 rev every 90 seconds or so. outside diameter of pipe and rubber and all. a little faster than i'd like but owell.
and i'm glad i'm paying attention to it for a few hours before going to sleep. motor spins the wheel counterclockwise, it just fell off it's threaded connection heh. retightened everything and will see if it happens again. dunno if i can easily mount it to make it go clockwise hehe.
i've pen marked things to see if it tries to unscrew itself again... might have just been due to me buggering with stuff (causing it to spin before hitting the cross-torque bolts).
i'll also be fiddling with the voltage a bit to see if i can get something higher that doesn't mess up etc.
edit: it seems to be doing fine now. and the wheel hasn't tried to unscrew itself either.
i will note that due to being rectangular, the bullets seem to spend a fair amount of their time outside of the solution.......
i spent like 2 hours wandering around walmart as well... trying to find some kind of container that was 9.5-10" in circumference and round. utter failure. the 3 or 5 gallon water heat jugs come close... but i didn't wanna spend the $8-$12 on what prolly wouldn't work out right when trying to cut it down heh.
paint cans, coffee, cans, nothing was right. a $5 salad spinner comes real close.
i'll have to keep looking... there's bound to be something. i basically want something i can take 1/3rd of it off or maybe even a large window into it i can remove. even if i have to cut zip ties every time, that'd be fine. ie: quicker bullet removal / insertion into the basket.
also - upped the voltage to 2.25 volts, seems fine and draws ~1.0-1.5 amps. this particular regulator (lt1084) does produce a fair amount of heat.... so... yeah.
re-edit, 2.25 might have been producing some burnage, dropped it back down to 1.75v
NE Bull:
Unfy, I believe I will bequeathe to you my Golden Hatchet Award
( I was awarded it when I proceeded to weld up the ground off teeth in my pick-up's 4speed transmission. Hey, I was flat broke and desparate, and it worked, for a while)
After following this topic and looking over the last set of pictures, I think you are are more deserving. ;)
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE a good adventure in " Hey, I could build that! "
unfy:
NE Bull:
LOL. And while tinkering / red-neck-ery is in the family... I tend to avoid it personally heh. Also.... I don't think I deserve it just yet... (and the welding of gear teeth is much more interesting IMHO).
Motor setup generally worked throughout the night. I did wake up once and noticed I didn't hear of the bullets falling around... went over and took a look....
The PVC plug on the motor had fallen off, and the rubber that was epodied to it was somehow inside out while still sitting there on the motor shaft. Really weird. Quickly re-assembled it (sans epoxy) and it was fine when I left the house to come to work (so still spinning).
Anyhoo, looking at the basket before coming to work, the bullets weren't shiny copper colored but rather that dingy coppery grey/brown. Some of the wire along the basket also looked a bit 'burnt'. So without actually taking anything apart to inspect the bullets - I'd have to say this was another failure :(
Power supply was still kicking out 1.7v, when the motor pvc plug had fallen off earlier, the basket was still submerged (and the bullets looked better too).
Soooooooo....
I have some kind of critical flaw going on.
Thoughts thus far:
a) my anode copper pipe hammered flat may not have enough surface area... meaning i'll need to pick up that $30 roll of copper roof flashing. have seen copper sheets as well, but they also run $30 and you get less material that's also harder to work with.
b) bullets getting lifted out of the solution by the spinning basket is evil maybe ? i have no ideas on how to completely submerge a spinning basket idea at the moment. also -- i wonder if a round basket would help or not (if they'd keep tumbling at the bottom or still lift up halfway. currently, when the basket is as deep as it can get, it's only a few inches in the solution.
c) as shown in the pictures, the basket is... well.. two baskets sandwiched together. the copper wire is "sewn" along the holes in the basket. This means that the copper wire is closer to the anode copper source than the bullets. I wonder if this can be causing a problem (the wire on the basket tends to look pretty good compared the bullets).
d) i've seen bullets occasionally get stuck in the holes of the basket. the little bit of lead exposed through the hole tends to plate decently. closer to the anode ? more solution movement ?
e) would a basket where the wires spread out in a star pattern from the 3d spacial center to the edge of the basket do better ? kinda looking like a big brush in the middle. this way instead of spinning around the circumference, there's 8 or more wires going to each flat surface of the current basket. would this encourage the lead to get more of the copper ?
f) what about using plastic window screen to construct a basket ?
g) i'm so very highly discouraged that this last endeavor didn't work perfectly :(
unfy:
random other thought to skip the basket.
take a sheet of plexi.
half way drill out 0.40 inch holes (or whatever). throughout it, so it looks like a reloading block. prolly only need to be ~1/4 inch deep.
place the bullets, nose down into it these cavities.
another plate sits on top of this, with wire somehow sticking down so that it touches the base of each bullet.
this.... shouldn't be too hard to construct and should provide sure electrical connections to each bullet.. the nose of the bullet is unimportant for shooting (other than maybe the copper plate is more sturdy if completely incasing the round ?). you would, however, end up with a dot or something of unplated lead at the base of every bullet. since the base is the second most important part (other than the walls)... this... seems like a bad idea ?
it also wouldn't be too difficult to spin this contraption within the liquid ... like a washing machine.
i dunno, just so disheartened at most recent fail heh.
unfy:
While at work, the rubber came off the motor pvc plug again... sigh.
The bullets themselves are above. Sigh. Just comes off with a brush or similar and isn't that thick.
My copper anode pipe has been eaten up hehehe. So yeah, I'll definitely have to get the copper flashing.
It'll be at least a week before I attempt anything again, just not in the mood now and have other things to attend to (ie: a kitty who is peeing pink :( )
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