Refinishing old fasteners.

[Mark]

Looking at all the rusting but otherwise sound nuts bolts and washers on my otherwise very tidy Sport, I’m wondering about a diy plating kit.
Any opinions regarding viability and what type of plating is best (zinc seems to be the default and cadmium frowned on these days)?

[morini_tom]

Paul Compton has been doing a lot of zinc plating and yellow passivating on his lotus restorations which looks impressive. Hopefully he’ll be along soon to give advice on that

[3potjohn]

I had a bit of experimentation with home brew nickel plating a year or so ago.Bit of a lash up. Mainly tried it on wheel spindle exterior ends and the caps on pillion footrests. There are commercial DIY kits for metal plating too. You have to have clean grease free metal whatever way you go. Disposal of the rather minimal waste materials made me worry though.

[Parker3865]

I have used a Gateros kit with good success on my Garelli Tiger Cross and 250 2c (see my posts in the 250 vee section). Like a lot of things preparation is key. I use brick cleaner as the etching acid, works for me.

[Mark]

Thanks for all the advice, I think I’ll give it a go with a Gateros kit. Their site has various sizes available, any opinion on what size is suitable for a couple of bike’s worth of fasteners? Also, if one doesn’t buy their 12v power supply how is one to connect it up - to a battery?

Hope your recent tumble wound is healing P, like so many of us I too have experienced a broken collarbone, front wheel went on grit 500 miles from home in a foreign country in the dark - what a malarkey that was!

[Parker3865]

I have used old phone chargers as power supplies, but they don't last long with me. I ended up buying a variable voltage/current supply off Amazon. A multimeter is handy so you can measure the current.

This is worth a watch, informative and well editied:

https://youtu.be/G-PtnwtOR24?si=mI2mmZlmCseyQKU5

[Mark]

Just watched - very interesting indeed.