Zinc plating at home for under $30

[Striker1423]

Plating your small doodads, bobs and bits is not difficult, nor particularly expensive.

Parts list:

Distilled Water (cheapest you can get)
Vinegar (cheapest you can get)
Mason jar (or plastic cup, bowl, whatever is big enough to use for what you want to plate)
Salt (table, rock, whatever)

Metal anode (Zinc, Nickel, etc. I use zinc.)
Alligator clips and wire.
One small steel or copper wire to wrap around part.
Double D cell battery tray.
Brake Kleen or Carb Clean spray

All of the above can be had at most grocery stores, the second half of the list can be had off amazon for under 20 bucks (or auto parts store, but who doesn't keep a can of brakekleen?).

Basics of plating are as follows:
Parts must be clean and free of rust and or oils, etc. So break out the wire brush or bench grinder and go ham, cleaning off the rest with your favorite spray.
Don't touch the freshly cleaned parts (use a glove or rag to handle until plating's done.)

Then watch this video:

And this video:

[The Red Scourge]

I'm sold!  Really nice write-up!

[irk_miller]

Better plating comes from a more accurate power source.  If you plan to do a lot of plating, a decent and fully adjustable DC power supply can be had for very cheap (under $100) on Amazon.

[sav0r (CL MotoTech)]

Cool!

I recently got my anodizing setup going. It is very rudimentary still, but on a few test parts things appear to be working. I'd like to work on black oxide coating next. I don't do a ton of steel work though, so the expense is hard to justify.

When you can manage good results, coating stuff is pretty fun.

[Striker1423]

Irk is correct in that better plating happens with more control.

However for the little fender bolts I have on the RD? Aside from paying for chrome, I figured Zinc was the next best thing and it cost me 20 bucks and a few hours work. Plating and polishing that is.