Copper Plating

[DaveB]

What about a battery charger for a rechargeable camera or something of the sort. I see my Gateway camera puts out 5 volts at 2.6 amps. They should be cheap if not free to get.

[unfy]

i have yet to see what happens when i try to plate ~100 bullets at once....

i do know that 3.3v 340ma was 'burning' the copper as it was plating.

using a resistor divider setup i got it to 1.6v but it wasn't enough current do any good (a D cell can put out 2amps if shorted).

lm317 is easy to wire up and can be done with alligator clips for the un-initiated... and i believe it can handle 1.5 amps no prob.... and available at radio shack.

i do have a $6 AA battery charger, but it does 2 batteries at a time, 2.8v 200ma.

The $20 charger prolly does better.... meh.

[unfy]

untwisted all of the pairs

stripped ends off of all of them

then pulled / pushed the insulation off the rest of the wire.

my hands hurt

one advantage of doing the pull stripping method -- it un-twists / un-kinks all of the wire

[unfy]

Lee Pro 4-20 pot is here, along with molds, sizing die, and lube.

have a 5 gallon bucket of wheel weights as well.

tonight will be fun!

----

edit: forgot i didn't have a way of cleaning the lead to make ingots.  can't do it in my kitchen for certain reasons.  had to run to walmart and grab a coleman 10k btu camp stove and a couple bottles of camp propane.

----

edit again: it better not ****ing snow tonight grrrrr

[ghknives]

The variac is a type 221B manufactured by Staco Energy rated for 120 volts input and 2.5 amp output. I found it  on Ebay for about $15. The rectifier is a radio shack part #261-1185. It's rated at 50v and the biggest they had at the time. Most of what I do is less than 50v but I have run it higher with no negative issues

[unfy]

ghknives: tnx for info.  after one or two plating attempts, we'll see if stuff is needed. 


even doing it outdoors, making ingots out of the wheel weights... i can still taste that smell. blech

also, my original pot i was gonna use melted through (why does my lead keep turning yellow / blue ?!).  so ended up using a wide thick skillet that... well.... was slow and a pita.

anyhoo, got 11 muffins out of it.  plenty left in bucket too.

took a break, getting tired.  casting bullets will have to wait until tomorrow.

note: sizing die punch pin doesn't fit under my LNL press shell plate.  i will have to come up with *something*.

---

edit: updated to reflect too tired to cast bullets and punch not fitting LNL press.

[unfy]

woke up and swear i could still taste that nasty road grime

tonight will be bullet casting and hopefully getting them into the dip!

*stoked*

---

I still lack a solution for the sizing die punch.  I will prolly take shell plate off the press.... and.... figure out some way of pulling the punch back down manually.  This is a definite problem.

Also -- re: punch -- i wonder if the thick part at the bottom....



^^^ Stock image, not mine

The punch is the thing on the left (for those who may not know).  I wonder if I can grind the thicker bottom portion down a bit so it fits in under my shell plate holder ?

[unfy]

after an hour trying to get my lee pro 4 20lb to cooperate outside ... and the lead still semi-solidifying along surface around the ring... and the pour spot always becoming solid....

i turned everything off, gonna let it cool for 30min, then try again inside with a fan for ventilation.

20f outside with a breeze just might be impossible

[unfy]

moved in doors with fan in window

cast went smoothly \o/

plating will have to wait, it's too late now.

[unfy]

Today at work was a company pot luck kinda thing.  I made a ham.

Anyhoo, this morning while the ham was in the rotisserie, I went about attempting to rough up and wire hook 100 bullets I had cast last night.

I got frustrated trying to work with the steel wool, got tired of doing bullets one at a time with a brush, so I ended up just putting steel wool and bullets in a bag and rubbed / worked everything for a while.

It took 2 hours to rough up and wrap ~ 100 bullets.

So with how I'm doing things now, this might be fine for rifle plinking rounds... but for high volume pistol rounds.... this is way too slow.

To possibly speed up wire hanging stuff..... 

* two wires running parallel
* twist wires
* put bullet at twist and curve wire around bullet groove
* twist wires on other side, thus clenching the bullet
* put other bullet on new side of twist
* repeat, repeat, repeat

this way, depending on wire thickness (for strength to keep'em from collapsing the wire), you can run several bullets in a line.  haven't tried it yet, i know the 24awg i'm using for hangers right now is too thin.  The 14awg might work or might be too stiff, I dunno.  Hell, might even be able to just make VVVV shapes in the two of the 14awg wires instead of actually twisting it (and using thin wire or something else to clamp them together to hold the bullets).

This still leaves the time consuming process of roughing the bullets up.... which... if ya take a recently cast bullet and throw it into some strong acid, this shouldn't be a concern (ie: etch it).

I ..... don't wanna mess with the acid stuffs just yet though.

The rotating basket idea or something is prolly really needing to be figured out... this skips the hangers completely (although I do like the VVVVVV idea)


Anyhoo, the ~100 bullets in hangers are bathing in acetone while I'm at work today.  When I get home, I'll get to plating them.


edit: i wonder if we go from mold -> quench in distilled water -> acetone bath -> the VVVV hanger idea.... if the entire etching / roughing up step can be skipped ??  They do come out of the mold very pretty.... and oxidation shouldn't be a problem at that point ??

[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).

< >
< >
< >
< >
< >

[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

[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....

[unfy]

durrrrr.  well....

the wire VVVVVV idea is pretty much bust.

if... two .... "metal plates" came together to pinch a row of bullets in their groove... this MIGHT be a simple hanger system.  but wouldn't want metal plates due to all the extra plating.  two plastic plates or plastic dowels with a copper strand along one side (like a ruler).

it's a thought.


some kind of plastic basket like thing .... run some bare copper wires in it to an external something or another... bullets in there... and rotate.

i'll come up with a prototype simple things for both to test it. 

automating the rotation shouldn't be too difficult.... if this works out nicely.

[NE Bull]

OK, Ima gonna jump in here for a second;
A work they have a 'vibro plate'  I haven't looked closely at it but I believe they drop the pins in a metal basket in a solution of some sort that is constantly vibrating thus moving the objects around and not being plated together. (not my department, I just build what they plate) This is a large quantity at a time thing. Just an idea to throw at you and add to all they ones you already have taking up space in the noggin.    If some of the processes were not so proprietary, I'd say come and learn, but they kinda funny 'bout stuff like that.
Also I was on Berry's looking at Christmas deals and read that their bullets are plated and restruck, and after thinking of  your picture of the bullet you resized (where it made the sides look smooth), makes me wonder if they strike them not only for diameter, but on the whole of the bullet to ensure proper dimensions all around. That might explain the 'hammered' look of their plating.

[unfy]

ne bull:

Yup, vibrating stuff is one route commercial platers go.  Circuit boards are in a basket that rocks back and forth, and in general use - large rotating drums are quite common as well.  All of these also agitate the solution as they move / etc.

Part of the malfunction of what I'm trying to do is..... getting a setup that is easy to work with, does a decent coat of plating, easy to do en-masse, and lastly is home-friendly.

Soooo... I've been avoiding buying specialty chemicals (re: easier to work with).  I've been avoiding the strong acids and strong bases (re: home friendly).  And I refuse to touch arsenic and such (durrrr heh).

----

The scaffolding and hanger system gives a 'decent coat', works for varying definitions of 'en-masse'.... but it's failing the 'easy to work with' bit. 

A rocking back and forth basket used in circuit board stuffs really isn't going to work out for bullets.  They would still need to be individually secured somehow etc.

Big rotating drum - this is the self contained stuffs of the big boys.  Out of my league.

Slowly rotating basket - has possibilities now that I've gotten beyond my retardation of thinking I need a metal or titanium basket.  A plastic basket with only a handful of wires ran around the inside dimaeters would do nicely.  Would require some engineering to rotate the basket while it's in the liquid (does it need to be wholly submerged the entire time ? i doubt it).... and a powerful enough motor (or geared down enough) to rotate it.  One hundred 180 grain bullets weigh around 2.5 pounds.  Low RPM motors are fairly easy to find online and there might be store solutions as well (how slow do rotisseries or ceiling fans rotate???)

Vibrating plate - also has possibilities.  Would I be vibrating the whole tank, or just the basket / plate thing that holds the bullets ?  Can I build a non-metal plate with some spread out copper contact points ? How much movement is needed to keep the bullets jossling around ?  How much do they need to jossle ? Again, working with around 2.5 pounds. I doubt a trip to Dr. John's to buy their cheapest feminine toy would provide enough vibration....

One of the reasons I'm trying to avoid metal baskets / plates / etc -- is waste of the anode material and other clean up concerns.


I am by no means an expert..... but...

Striking is applying a thin coat of something.  Not a physical hammering.  It's typically used as a 'glue' between whatever you're base item is and what you're trying to get it to bond to -- particularly if you want stronger bondings or if your base item doesn't like to be plated by your target coat.  You can also apply an initial strike of something in order to improve the coat of your final (ie: the strike has affinity for both the base and final coats).  *Maybe* you could also do a top coat of some other protective material as a top coat (akin to polyurethane ?).

Given that I've had a good coat of copper on my lead with decent bonding, I don't think an initial strike (of say, nickel) is needed.  I believe a nickel strike would still require proper surface preparation (physical abrasion and/or etching).  Again, I'm not an expert, but maybe a nickel strike would bond the copper to the lead better ?  Completely out of my ass -- I'm not a chemist nor metallurgist

I believe the 'hammered' look of Berry's is due to being in a big drum or some other thing where the bullets are constantly tumbling onto each other during the plating process.

[unfy]

Hit dollar store for a couple collandars as well as a couple generic baskets.

Lowes was open until 6PM.... picked up a bunch of pvc stuff to build the thing to hold the baskets and such.

Now to actually construct it etc

[unfy]

*sigh*

this was at 13v radio shack power supply.

tomorrow i'll rough them back up, and attempt it again with just a battery.

edit:

just flakes off.  also - the basket is 1/2 or more out of the copper sulfate, dunno if that's causing a problem.