Ammunition & Hand Loading > Cartridge and Shotshell reloading
Copper Plating
rudy:
If you are going to go the individual cell route, then maybe for agitation you could build a giant orbital shaker? Example of homemade orbital shaker: http://blog.makezine.com/2010/12/06/diy-laboratory-shaker/
I did a little bit of searching and ran across a couple of things that may interest you. A homemade barrel plater looks like it might solve some of your problems, namely making contact with the bullets and agitating the solution. Here is an example of a homemade barrel plater with some videos of its operation: http://www.nulltime.com/zincplating/shop_setup/plating_barrel/index.html
Lastly, I did some searching on how other people plate copper on lead. I ran across a thread on caswell's site. Caswell sells plating solutions for just about everything and they have a support forum to help people get their stuff to work. In my research (I am a grad student) I have done some electroplating and have used caswell's gold bath with decent success. http://forum.caswellplating.com/electroplating-questions/12853-copper-plating-lead-bullets-produces-flaky-finish.html
The discussion has a link to a PDF outlining a plating setup with a tub, agitator, etc. I think the barrel plater is more elegant, personally.
The only downside to the caswell solution is of course the price and the fact that the solutions are proprietary. For example, they won't disclose the solution makeup, but disclosed that the gold concentration in the solution I used was 2 pennyweights per US gallon.
Hope this helps, good luck.
unfy:
Rudy:
OooOooooo..
The orbital shaker as presented seems a bit violent for trying to keep a bullet dangling in place via either the clothespins things I've made, or even hanging by a wire. Bullet would need to be secured in place via stiff metal.
That said... a more tame version of the shaker might be possible.... I dunno. It'll require some pondering. Definitely something to think about :).
The barrel plater shown is an interesting approach. I thought about something like that, but went with the rotating 5gal bucket setup instead. It's possible that the drum setup caused the CuSO4 solution to become copper depleted within the drum and that there wasn't enough agitation to get a good flow from the copper donor plate.
I can also easily construct the barrel plater described in the video with all of the materials I have on hand.
I'll prolly need to decide between progressing with the 'cell' approach or this other barrel idea.
I've read through the caswell stuff, as well as the forum topic and pdf ya mention :). The caswell tank isn't too different than how my tank was originally (or latter with the clothespins) setup.
The tank with hangers does indeed produce a copper coating, but it's variable from bullet to bullet and the quality is generally lacking. Distances to anode plate and differences in the amount of agitation per bullet are undoubtedly the cause.
Also, caswell and most other places do indeed make mention of expensive addititives. Whether it be pickling solutions or brighteners or whatever. I'm obviously trying to avoid such things :). Sadly, no one discloses what's in brighteners :(.
Picklers are undoubtedly mostly just H2SO4 or some other similar acid (phosphoric comes to mind).
The barrel angled barrel setup is most interesting as an attempt. I'd need to switch to a smaller tank and construct dangler and other things... but that's all fairly trivial. I've also already got a decent motor for spinning things...
I love the thought of the barrel approaches due to "just dump the bullets in and go". There's so much simplicity there. Sadly, my results were quite lacking. Undoubtedly due to my barrel design and tank setup.
Individual cells seem to be easy to construct so far (barring agitation concerns atm) ... and seem like the easiest way to get reproducible results that are needed for bullets. The clothespins things made do make working with individual bullets (as a hanger) easy enough.
Decisions heh.
I'll undoubtedly construct a single cell, then a 4x4 grid of cells and give it a go to see what I think. There's no reason I can't also fiddle with the angled barrel as well (other than workspace considerations).
Something to ponder with individual cells... a 4x4 grid of cells is a little over a square foot... yielding only 16 bullets. A 4 foot folding table is typically 4x2, which would be 128 bullets which would be acceptable probably. Can always set up 4x4 cells and then stack them as well if needed.
Tnx again rudy.
rudy:
If you do decide to go the individual cell route, I think it would work just fine without agitation. With no agitation you'd be relying on diffusion as the main source of mass transfer of copper(II) from the bulk of solution to the bullet/electrolyte interface. Hence, it would probably just take longer to get a similar amount of copper to plate compared to when agitation is employed.
I'm curious to see how it turns out. Thanks for posting your progress, it is fun to read.
unfy:
I've gone about starting to make some of the cells.
I shoulda thought about stuff before opening my mouth on cell density per square foot. The pipe is 3.5" wide.. durrrr...
So can get 3x3 in a square foot with a couple inches of wiggle room.
Anyhoo, since I had four strips of copper already ready... i made four cells bodies. I have spare copper to make a few more strips (for a total of 6 cells) without having to cut into what's left of the untainted coil of copper roofing flashing. I'll need to hit ALL of the copper strips with a wire brush on a drill though... heh.
Immediate notes:
3" standard pvc pipe
Cut to around 3.5" in length
PVC primer/cemented one end of each with test cap (33 cents each at hardware store, they're not "for perm plumbing end caps").
pi * d = circumference = 9.43 inches, my copper strips were around 10 inches so they fit in nicely, and were 3 inches in width already (6 inch flashing cut in half long ways).
pics coming later
00BUCK:
Do you use acid in any of this? I have a container of car battery acid that has only a little bit has been used. I'd donate it to you if you can use it.
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