Copper Plating

[unfy]

3 coats. i believe this is the 20min one from last night given first recoat weighing. its... smooth textured as well.

so...

20min
30min
30min

final weight: 142.6 grains (from 139.7? 139.6?)

final diameter: .404 - .405

that... gives a coat thickness of 1.5-2.0mm ....


for s&g i tried a single bullet with the 13v setup again.  got the burned result again.  whatever.  that'll be more important when plating more (higher surface area requiring more power draw).


grabbed the other coated bullet from last night... steel wooled ... juiced.... acetoned ... and about ready to go all night on a C cell near the bubbly agitation stuff.

[unfy]

Oops, didn't have the cathode hooked up correctly.  Soooo it bathed in copper sulfate for no reason all night

Re-acetoned and got it hooked up correctly, we'll see what a day of plating does.

[unfy]

The 3 times plated bullet under microscope with it's built in light turned on.

No pot marks, looks fairly smooth, etc.

Again the shiny spots are just shiny copper etc.

[unfy]

! SUCCESS !





This is between 12 and 13 hours in the dip on a C-cell battery.  Admittedly after an initial 20 or 30min coat the night before.

it weighs over 165gr (over 23gr of copper added, and yes i took the wire off before measuring it) and has a 0.428-0.430 diameter!

there *is* a tiny bit of roughness / crystalization looking stuff on the nose / tip of the bullet (as well as a tiny bit at the base), but.... it's not nearly as bad as the older overnight bullet.

and at 30 thousandths of an inch too big... well... thats way too much copper .  means the plating thickness is 15thousandths, which is twice what berry's does.



i am *not* going to strip the lube off of 100 or more of my MBC lead.  and i don't have a pot just yet (work has offered a solder pot they're not using, so i could just start ladelling if i bought some molds).

so the move into figuring out how much power to supply lotsa bullets will have to wait. 

stage 1 of the experiment is complete!

[Dan W]

Do you have a way to section that bullet and measure the layer of copper? It might be interesting to see if the thickness varies at all

[ghknives]

I made a device for anodizing titanium that may be helpfull. By using a variac (available at electronic supply or surplus houses) and a rectifier I am able to convert 110 volts ac to a variable DC current of less than a volt to 110 volts. If interested I'll try to get some plans & pics posted this week end

[unfy]

Do you have a way to section that bullet and measure the layer of copper? It might be interesting to see if the thickness varies at all

Sounds like you want rifle plinking ammo

I can't think of a way to do it cleanly.  Most any kind of saw is gonna tear at stuff making it difficult to judge.  Similarly, a break / knife is gonna bend / gouge stuff.  I'll take it to work and ask people there (we do metal work along with embedded devices).

A case concentricity gauge or something similar (the tools to use to check how much run out case necks have etc) might be a good way of doing it.  I don't have any such tools.  Also, since you possibly still want to size the bullet after doing this operation, you will definitely want custom molds made that are a few thousandths of an inch smaller to handle the plating (this should make it even more uniform as the copper doesn't get squished into the lead).

The simple test would be to simply plate some rifle rounds and see how they perform.  Takes a lot of guess work out of it .

Once I have this fully up and running, I'll gladly plate some bullets for some people so they can see how they perform and such.  Other than time, it's almost free for me to do.  Note: i currently use the bullet lube groove to wrap a wire around to hold the bullets.  If a particular design doesn't have that I'm not entirely sure on a good way to 'hang plate' them like I do.

I made a device for anodizing titanium that may be helpfull. By using a variac (available at electronic supply or surplus houses) and a rectifier I am able to convert 110 volts ac to a variable DC current of less than a volt to 110 volts. If interested I'll try to get some plans & pics posted this week end

A variable DC power supply with 1v-13v and 100ma - 2000ma would be ideal.  A coworker was wanting me to make one or something similar.  I don't even know if my DMM here at home has a good battery in it (I tried to get away from doing that kind of thing at home years ago).

As it is, I have plenty of batteries, and plenty of old wall warts to chop up if I need to . 

I'd gladly take a look at what ya got.  Taking all ideas and all input on the project (well, almost all lol). 

Similarly, until I get something nailed down...

http://www.amazon.com/MASTECH-HY1803D-VARIABLE-SUPPLY-display/dp/B005112A2E

that looks to be an awesome way of experimenting with different settings without breaking the bank! .  After I actually get some casting tools and can work with large batches.... i'll be first just attempting what power sources i have available around me.  Now that I know more about what I'm looking for, it shouldn't be too hard to know if it'll work within the first 20min.

[unfy]

The way-over-plated (.430) bullet next to the 3 coat bullet.

People at work suggest a dremel to get a cross section.  We don't seem to have the cutting wheel disc holder here... but I've got dremel + accessories at home... so if we don't find stuff here, I can attempt it at home.

Fun note: I actually had to take a pair of pliers and peel the wire off of this bullet, it was "electroplated welded / glued" to the bullet and the wire just broke trying to get it off .

Oh, and no, taking .401 lead and plating them to .451 is not a good idea.  At 25grains of copper added to this round, the copper is already around 17-18% of the bullet weight.  If ya pass 25% of weight on the jacket, you're breaking the federal 'cop killer anti-armor handgun bullet' law.

[unfy]

ordered from midway:

lee pro pot 4, 110v 20lb

175gr 401 2 cavity mold with handles

401 sizing die (for going on top of press)

small bottle of rcbs case lube #2 (to help push copper through sizing die)

Should be here tuesday / wednesay of next week (20th-ish).

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have all the safety gear and stuff.... will just need to dig up some wheel weights and paraffin wax now

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was pondering to myself if i could figure out if aluminum plating was possible or something.  this way i could take the molds sent to me and shrink them to make way for plating hehehehehe

that's probably entirely doomed to failure though... temperature stress and all that.

[unfy]

I started to attempt to dremel it in half.  got that far and the dremel cutting disc broke.  took the moment to try to inspect it... but..... alas, the lead was flowing too much (heat or just cause it's soft) and was covering up the plated section.

i *might* have been able to wirebrush it i suppose.... but... instead... i struck it with a hammer moderately three times and it finally gave way:




The first blow... did nothing.  It simply didn't care.  Second blow started it to buckle a bit, third one got to where we are.

So... i grabbed some needle nose pliars and pulled it apart...








The lesson here ? Copper's tough, and it did NOT flake apart or anything.  If anything, it looks somewhat like some of the case-turned-into-jacket results (granted, this didn't go through nearly as much energy as those did hehehe).

a crude visual inspection looks fairly even distribution.

[DaveB]

So now, is it okay if I send you 10,000 or so to plate for me?

Still fun to watch.

[Dan W]

The reason I asked about checking the thickness variation is that I have read it effects the accuracy. When a bullet spins and the weight is not concentric, it can not stabilize in flight.

[DaveB]

That is the reason Hornady sells seconds sometimes.

At handgun ranges, and rotation, how much do you think a couple thousandths would matter? I don't think it would affect me that much.

[unfy]

So now, is it okay if I send you 10,000 or so to plate for me?

Still fun to watch.

LOL

.... well... after i get some non lubed bullets (next week after pot & molds come in) .... i can get mass production tests underway.  after which i can finalize my suggested / as is setup for others to follow.

i have *no* idea what requirements there might be for selling bullets or offering a plating service (ie: do i still need that $M general protection insurance policy ?!).  but.... i don't think i'd have any qualms with offering to plate some for people so they can see decide if they wanna do it themselves.

dunno how many bullets my current setup can handle..... if i can get 100 bullets plated every 1-4 hours, i'll be okay with the results.  i guess first step would be to eventually notch the copper pipe i'm using as a scaffolding cathode.  that way i'd at least have a known mechanical-physical limit.

The reason I asked about checking the thickness variation is that I have read it effects the accuracy. When a bullet spins and the weight is not concentric, it can not stabilize in flight.

I believe the Speers reloading manual might talk about this.  as might the Hornady.  or vice versa.

I don't believe handgun it matters too much ? it might, i dunno.

If I could get a clean cross section, then maybe it'd be easy to get figures.

Easiest of all is probably to plate some, load'em up, and benchrest'em.

[unfy]

Some shopping for casting supplies.  Picked up a few things plating related.

14ga solid core copper wire, $12 for 50 feet, way overkill on quantity.  I don't have any left over solid core wire laying around, and I didn't particularly see any left over bits at the hardware store.  This will be used to wrap around the bullet lube groove and then bend into an S shape to hang from the copper pipe cathode.  (i've been aligator clip plus a few strands from other wire).

Some 00 sized/graded steel wool,  $4 for it.  00 seemed to scratch up the 3-coat bullet just fine and shouldn't gouge stuff (forgot to bring lead with me).  All the steel wool i have here at home is the blue soapy embedded stuff.  fine to clean out a small bit of the soap then use on the lead for the small tests, but not so great for mass production.

Also, was running low, $8 gets 50 nitrile disposable gloves (dealing with copper sulfate after all).

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edit: oh, just for s&g, picked up a $3 3.3v 350ma wall wart from thift store.

[unfy]

14ga wire is way too thick

difficult to manipulate, etc.

[unfy]

Grabbed a 50ft thing of Cat3 cable from hardware store for... $8 ? something like that.  It looks to be 24awg solid core.  Easy to strip (am i a pro meth-head now?) and makes a sturdy yet workable hanger:



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for amusement ---- when i first started looking for supplies, i couldn't find a copper sheet / flashing / plate to act as a source of copper on the anode.

found nothing, decided to try using the hammered out tubing to see if it works etc.

well..... while browsing for other items of world domination, i saw this:



i dunno i fit's solid copper or coated/plated or what (claims it is cast copper), but it's heavy enough to be.  didn't pick it up, but it would undoubtedly need to be wire brushed to get any protective coating off and prolly cut into to see if it is indeed solid copper.

[ghknives]

Here is the information on my anodizer.

[unfy]

Just looked at UPS tracking number from Midway.  Everything arrives tomorrow.  I thought I had more time to prepare! Eeek!


Notching the pipe with the pipe cutter and tesing hanging a bullet from it (worked):




I spaced out my notches to be a lil over 1/2 an inch from each other.  This gave me 96 notches give or take:




Now on to the cat3 -- it has 6 wires in it, so i needed 17 sections (just so some extra).  I made these a little bit longer than they needed to be, which is always a good idea:




Using the tip of a needle nose plier, just nudge one end an opening and then pull rest out the other side, real easy and alot like crab / lobster.




Untwisting is a bit of a pain in the ass, but after getting one end stripped, grab with pair of pliars and scoot the rest off (sliding along copper wire) with another pair... squirts right off.

[unfy]

Here is the information on my anodizer.

What do you use for the variac and rectifier ?

Similarly, I was debating an LM317 to bring the 13v 3amp dc down to 1.5v or so. 

And just for some math fun:

100 bullets is about.....  0.52 square feet of surface area ....which means to plate 0.001 inch of copper on to it would take 9.27 amp-hours.  Since I want around 0.003 or so... I need 28 amp hours....