Do we have a thread on plating?

I'm curious if anyone  has experience with nickel plating, e.g. a motorcycle frame.

high polished chrome look or electroless nickel?

You looking to do it yourself or farm it out?

The shiny stuff goes to chrome platers . It is the penultimate stage in chrome plating anyway.

Caswell offers plating kits and electroless, they aren't inexpensive and a setup large enough for a frame would be into the several thousand dollars range.

EDIT:

I looked it up. This is a job for the chrome platers. I use a company called restoration plating in Spokane Washington. 

The age old "fast, cheap, good pick any two" applies. 

Would something known as "Hydrogen Enbritlement" be a factor in chrome platting a motorcycle frame? 

In reply to Trent :

I think I'd be looking for something with a "matte/titanium" finish.

NOHOME said:

Would something known as "Hydrogen Enbritlement" be a factor in chrome platting a motorcycle frame? 

Most likely not. Hydrogen Embrittlement is mostly seen on higher strength alloys and high hardness steels (HRC 30 or higher). To get to that hardness you need some sort of quench and temper not the normalized welded tubes that motorcycle frames are made from.  

I have nickel-plated items before. I was looking at rust prevention instead of mirror finish.

Electroplating is not difficult. 

All you need is a vinegar/salt/nickel solution that you can make with a little vinegar, a couple of chunks of nickel from Amazon, and a power supply. 

The plating process is pretty simple as well. 

https://www.wikihow.com/Do-Nickel-Plating

And you would need a tub big enough for a motorcycle frame.  I guess you could do half the frame at a time?  Then flip it over and plate the other half.  Maybe.

In reply to Noddaz :

Plastic garbage can?

So what do you do with the leftover vinegar/salt/nickle solution when you are done?

adam525i said:

So what do you do with the leftover vinegar/salt/nickle solution when you are done?

You tow it outside of the environment...

How much nickel would be in the solution?  My assumption of the process is that you're not doing something like making a nickel solution and dipping the part into it, you're making a solution that, with the help of electricity, makes the nickel prefer to be on the part instead of anywhere else.

That said, well-salted vinegar is pretty good at derusting things, so you may as well keep the solution around.  But the parts WILL rust fairly quickly afterwards.

No experience plating, but for the last 26yrs I've worked for a company that makes coating and plating thickness measurement equipment and supplies.  From large X-Ray Fluorescence models, benchtop units by Eddy Current, handheld devices for magnetic resonance.  Also units that use beta backscatter probes and isotopes to measure some applications.

If you have questions, if I don't know the answer I know 3 other people with a total of about 100yrs experience to ask.

(Electroless Nickel uses no electricity at all and could be handy, it involves a small percentage of phosphorous in solution, like 6-12%)

I've been wanting to learn how to do zinc plating. Seems tedious though lol

I think this is the thread I did a deeper dive on zinc plating 

https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/learn-me-diy-cadmium-plating/194943/page1/