Electroplating Silver

[foges]

Hey guys,
How would one go about electroplating silver, we have some candles that are relatively old and the silver plating is rubbing off at certain places. Is this even doable for the without very specialized equipment. We did some copper plating in school, but i cant find anything about electroplating silver online.

 

[wwswimming]

i've called out silver plating on a lot of parts i've designed
or drawings i've been asked to sign.

i've known a few do-it-yourself type technical folks;
haven't met anyone who did it at home. certainly it's
doable but normally there are some pretty serious
chemicals involved.

from experience, $75 for a batch of anodized parts,
about a dozen parts.

it's probably a lot cheaper to pay someone to do it.
i have an antique silver-plated bowl that i use as a
candle-holder too. i'm not sure if it needs polishing
or re-plating like you're talking about.

if you want to save money, you could probably
find someone locally who have some antique
silver-plated items with the same situation, maybe
split the batch price 2 or 3 ways.

 

[CTho9305]

wwswimming, are you manually wrapping your lines? Your posts don't even appear to be 80 characters wide (which I could see happening if you used an archaic external text editor for form fields)...

 

[Sho'Nuff]

Originally posted by: foges
Hey guys,
How would one go about electroplating silver, we have some candles that are relatively old and the silver plating is rubbing off at certain places. Is this even doable for the without very specialized equipment. We did some copper plating in school, but i cant find anything about electroplating silver online.

See http://www.finishing.com/faqs/howworks.html

Are you talking about electroplating the candles themselves or the holders? I imagine it would be difficult to electroplate paraffin as it is non-conductive, and electroplating usually requires positively or negatively charging the substrate to be plated. If you mean the holders, then I would try the solutions mentioned at this Link.

One thing you should definitely consider is that many commercial electrolytic silver plating solutions use silver cyanate, which could release cyanide gas. For obvious reasons, you would want to avoid those.

 

[wwswimming]

Originally posted by: CTho9305
wwswimming, are you manually wrapping your lines? Your posts don't even appear to be 80 characters wide (which I could see happening if you used an archaic external text editor for form fields)...

yes. easier on my eyes to not move them
so much left to right, when i'm typing.

it's also easier on my eyes to type without
looking for the caps button.

 

[foges]

Yes i meant candle holders, stupid mistake. Ill check out the link. But if cyanide is released i think id rather let someone else do it. The thing is i live in switzerland and there arnt many local silver stores, the only one i can think of is one on zurich's equivalent of 5th avenue, and im prety sure that wont be cheap.

 

[bobsmith1492]

Originally posted by: foges
Yes i meant candle holders, stupid mistake. Ill check out the link. But if cyanide is released i think id rather let someone else do it. The thing is i live in switzerland and there arnt many local silver stores, the only one i can think of is one on zurich's equivalent of 5th avenue, and im prety sure that wont be cheap.

You're sure it's not just tarnished in areas? Did you polish it up nicely already? I'd hate for you to go to too much trouble for a nonexistent problem...

 

[Markbnj]

if you want to save money, you could probably
find someone locally who have some antique
silver-plated items with the same situation, maybe
split the batch price 2 or 3 ways.

Definitely don't replate any antiques 🙂. At least not without the advice of an expert on their value.

 

[smaky]

See if you can get some Cool-Amp. It uses a silver-chloride solution instead of cyanide.
I use it frequently. It takes some time to get good silver plate but if your candle is not porous or has bumps and other surface faults it should work fine.

www.cool-amp.com/cool-amp.html

 

[CTho9305]

Originally posted by: wwswimming

Originally posted by: CTho9305
wwswimming, are you manually wrapping your lines? Your posts don't even appear to be 80 characters wide (which I could see happening if you used an archaic external text editor for form fields)...

yes. easier on my eyes to not move them
so much left to right, when i'm typing.

it's also easier on my eyes to type without
looking for the caps button.

You can use userContent.css to make the text box narrower - I think this should be useful. It should make the places you type replies narrower - you can edit the pixel numbers to change the sizes, and delete sections with effects you don't want. You'll have to restart your browser to pick up changes you make to the file.

 

[wwswimming]

You can use userContent.css to make the text box narrower - I think this should be useful. It should make the places you type replies narrower - you can edit the pixel numbers to change the sizes, and delete sections with effects you don't want. You'll have to restart your browser to pick up changes you make to the file.

thanks. are you saying i can do that on posts
at Anandtech ?

i've seen that on other websites, where people
insert a <body bgcolor="#000000"> (as an example)
but i have to think that wouldn't work at Anandtech.

 

[CTho9305]

wwswimming, I sent you a private message (I would have earlier but it didn't look like you had enabled private messages...or maybe I'd forgotten to log in 😉).

 

[Sho'Nuff]

Originally posted by: smaky
See if you can get some Cool-Amp. It uses a silver-chloride solution instead of cyanide.
I use it frequently. It takes some time to get good silver plate but if your candle is not porous or has bumps and other surface faults it should work fine.

www.cool-amp.com/cool-amp.html

Silver chloride works, but only if you need a very very very thin coating deposited, e.g., one that is less than one micron to low microns thick. Coatings that thin are very hard to deposit without proper substrate preparation. Without proper prep you will get cracking, and then you will have to remove the deposit and start over.