Silver plating on electroformed copper

[JanMD]

Has anyone tried to silver plate or gold plate over the electroformed copper? If so, how has it worked? Any tips or tricks to offer?

Does anyone have any experience with "pen plating"? Is this an alternative to tank plating for silver or gold?

JanMD

[DarleenMB]

It's my understanding that plating with precious metals requires the use of undesirable chemicals like ... cyanide. So no. Haven't done it and have no desire to do so.

[kimberly]

There are less toxic alternatives to the cyanide solutions, but as I haven't tried them, I can't say how well they work. This is something I have thought of doing as well, but my days still only have 24 hours in them, dang it!

[JanMD]

Kim, you are correct. I have this booklet from Rio entitled 'The Midas Guide to Plating: Bath Plating, Pen Plating, and Electroforming, Principles, Safety, Tips' and it describes an "alkaline-based' silver plating process that appears to be fairly benign. (Almost all the others are 'cyanide-based' except one or two that are 'acid-based', just like our electroforming process.)

It says that the process uses the same rectifier that we use for the copper. And it does not require any pre-plating. That is, you can silver plate right onto the copper. The description says that it "deposits a fine silver plate directly onto copper". Of course, it requires a "pure silver anode", but what the heck! (Oh and I suppose you would need to mask the bead hanger, to avoid silver plating the wire.)

But hey, I think it might be worth a try. It also says that the plating process takes "30 seconds to 2 minutes". I like the sound of that!

JanMD