Ammunition & Hand Loading > Cartridge and Shotshell reloading
Copper Plating
unfy:
ok, so it's prolly 94 or 96, not 100... but they're all in the bath now.
hooked up to a single D-cell battery, and they're starting to plate (some random pulls after a few min shows this).
note: the hangers are a pain in the ass to work with. imagine 100 very pissed off xmas ornaments are thrown into a box with their tree hanger lil wires still attached... and then you shake the box up.
then you need to go through and detangle them without breaking the wires or touching the ornaments.
edit: they are easy to hang and such, but.... use an acetone and water container bath that makes inserting and retrieving them easier
*sigh*
Desparately need to try out the VVVV style thing (assuming the wires are going up and down the page, bend 2 stiff wires into this shape, with the bullets going in between the <>'s).
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unfy:
2 hours on 2 different D cells (swapped out an hour into it).
The.... plating job isn't the greatest... but that honestly looks like it's cause i didn't rough'em up good enough.
in the mean time, attempting 20min on the 13v supply with he 80 or so bullets that are still in the dip.... to see if they burn or not.
unfy:
^^^
They generally didn't mind about the 13v power supply. Maybe 3 rounds had some slight possible signs of burnage.... getting the agitation better arranged would prolly fix much of that.
An example of the variety I achieved. 1 good lucking bullet, 1 that suffered a little bit of burning, and one that apparently didn't have good / any contact with the scaffolding cathode. There were several great looking bullets, lots of meh, a few burnt, and the lone no-contact bullet.
So.... what do I take away from this so far.
1) I need to probably get my agitation stuff better worked out (the little bit of burning at 13v prolly hints at this)
2) As designed, it seems to work well
3) the scaffolding is succeptable to some green corrosion
4) working with hangers is a PITA when doing it in quantity
5) the notching on the scaffolding cathode really did well for lining up the bullets
6) 00 grade steel wool is probably not course enough .... orrrrrr ... i need to come up with a better way of roughing up the surface. i FULLY ADMIT TO BEING LAZY ABOUT IT THIS MORNING and is probably why the plating quality wasn't perfect tonight
7) as a possible opposite of (6), a strong acid etchant might not be a bad idea
8 ) i want to try the cast -> water -> acetone -> plate with a few rounds to see how that performs
9) i really wanna try two stiffer wires in a VVVV pattern to see if they can act as a quick hanging solution
unfy:
Took shell plate off of the press, ran the sizing die down as far as it'll go, put a big (as in diameter) washer around the punch just to make it easier to pull out.... and pushed a plated bullet through.
Yes I know the cast job on this particular bullet sucks, that's not what this thread is about >:D
unfy:
^^^
Roofing section of Menards. In the Bellevue store near Kennedy / Wal-mart, it's in the front left corner of the store.
At $30, its a bit over priced for this particular project, but i doubt you'd ever need to buy more. It's also a nice flat sheet that prolly does well at providing a great anode. I didn't see any single sheet copper flashings (only galvanized).
There are also the $4 deck/fence post caps that have copper tops. Would require some disassembly and they look like they might have some kind of coating on the backside of the copper....
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