Thread 2934005

Hey /diy/, I was looking into electroplating for a retarded autistic project I want to undertake, and my research so far is showing that doing actual brass electroplating would be sorta untenable for me, but then I ran into this sort of brass coating thing.

Basically you heat the steel up fairly high (I think about 1,100 F, 600ish C) and then use a brass wire brush to on the steel, gradually layering on more and more brass as you go.

Has anyone ever tried this? How well did it work for you? Do you think it would work well on small items like pocket watches or small features like engraving very well?

Why dont you just get 60/40, some flux and just slather brass on and let it wet out?
The electroplating idea seems weird to me, wouldnt different constitutens transfer differently and you might just end up with a layer of copper or so?

>>2934008
>Why dont you just get 60/40, some flux and just slather brass on and let it wet out?
I'm a guy with big dreams and limited working knowledge unfortunately, so much so that I don't know what any of that is.

>>2934005 (OP)
Has anyone ever tried this?
had that happen on accident when de-rusting thin sheet stock

>>2934286
Im referring to brazing. Aka every day doofus metal joining. You go to the store, get flux and brass rod. Apply flux to metal, heat it up until dull glow, touch brass to it, let it wet out, move the heat around to make it go where you want it. On clean metal and used with flux it'll wet out real nice, thin and evenly. Brazers would often refer to this as 'tinning'. It's essentially just you tinning stuff with brass. Odd mask thingy might warp slightly and need more forming afterwards.

>>2934005 (OP)
>Has anyone ever tried this?
Sure. But not for the purpose of adding a "brass coating". Like >>2934365 says, this is just the first step in brazing two pieces of steel together. It's like soldering but with brass instead of a lead-tin alloy. It's a common thing, and it's easy.

>Do you think it would work well on small items like pocket watches
That requires a lot of skill, because of the temperature involved. If you're a newbie you could easily accidentally melt the part you're trying to cover with brass

>small features like engraving very well?
It would be terrible for this because the liquid brass is fairly viscous so it will tend to fill in the engraving.

>>2934008
>The electroplating idea seems weird to me
Yeah. You can electroplate with pure substances, but brass is an alloy so you can't really electroplate with that.

Electroplating or chemical plating would work the best for small engraved parts, you just cant' do it with brass. Copper, nickel, gold, etc? Sure, you could do any of those.

>>2936681
>melting the part
KEK!
Nah my man. W
The flux burns maybe 100 degrees above where brass wets. That's still several 100 degrees away from melting down steel. Also you should sense something is wrong if the zinc is just burning out, coloring your flame and fuming up your whole place, your brass you put down looks like copper weirdly and stops wetting because the flux burnt up. Oh also your eyes will probably hurt because youre looking at white hot sparking steel as you're melting it down.
You have to have an aneurysm while brazing for any of this to happen.
Again OP:
Flux on, heat to dull red, apply brass, draw it out. Done. Perhaps fix warpage.

>>2936702
>Perhaps fix warpage.
This is not a perhaps. It WILL warp.

Electroplate tin and copper separately then heat the whole piece to alloy the layers.

>>2936856
>tin
zinc*

>>2934005 (OP)
it works great if you just care about the colour, I do it all the time on little forged things, here's a comparison between raw steel and hand brass brushed, a power tool can get a bit more on and is more consistent.
It's a bit fragile though, survives normal handling and sitting in pocket well enough but any kind of real wear would rub it off really quickly, and I'm not sure if it would do much for weather resistance, I doubt even the best application makes an impermeable barrier.
It's finnicky on large projects because there's a somewhat narrow temperature range where it works best, and it's easy to wreck the parts you've already done by overheating if you have to reheat to get the rest.

>>2936714
I never said it will perhaps warp
I said perhaps the warpage will be too severe for OPs liking and he will fix want to fix it

>>2936988
Very cool item anon.

>>2936681
>but brass is an alloy so you can't really electroplate with that
No you can, but it's not trivial. If you have two anodes, one copper and one zinc, each with their own current loop feeding into the workpiece cathode, you can choose the rate at which each of the ions enter the solution. Because the reduction potential and hence the electroplating rate are proportional to concentration (see: the reaction quotient in the Nernst equation), you will at some point reach a steady state whereby the ions entering the solution will leave it at the same rate. If you start off with a highly concentrated and voluminous solution of copper and zinc and have a small workpiece, you will likely just be plating copper for a while until its concentration drops enough that you start to plate an alloy, so I think it's best done with an initially inert solution (e.g. H2SO4), though it will take longer. Obviously it will also be easier with nickel instead of brass; it's best if the two metals are closer in standard reduction potential. Low currents are probably best in general to prevent strange geometric effects whereby different metals preferentially plate to different areas. Good fluid flow and maybe even a rotating workpiece would be desirable.

FYI I've never tried this so there may be other reasons complicating this process, but the theory is sound as far as I can tell. It should even be possible to vary alloy ratios as you plate by changing the current ratio, which might be useful if you're applying a significant thickness of metal. I was looking into this for the purpose of making an electrochemical 3D printer.