You're probably familiar with silver plated car emblems (since these never really go out of style), but did you know that you can also have gold plated car emblems? It instantly gives your car a sophisticated, classy flair minus the cost. In fact, gold plating car emblems is a DIY project you can explore, for as long as you have access to the right tools and materials. Once you've mastered this skill, you can consider pursuing it as a business, but that is a discussion for a different article.
To work on this project, you first need to have car emblems that have been chrome plated. Once you've got that down pat, you can proceed with the gold plating. Interestingly, the first step of the process is to get rid of any chrome residue from the surface of the emblem. The nickel on the surface then has to be activated before proceeding with the chrome plating.
Setting Up
As with all things in life, you need to prepare everything that you need before you get your hands busy. Set up all the the tools, equipment, and materials that you'll be using to avoid delays once you have started. If you opt to do the plating while the emblem is attached on the car, you can do that for as long as your water collection system is clean an efficient.
To do this, you need to have a drain apron and a drain pan. Stick the drain apron to the car body with a reusable high quality vinyl tape. This tape is a bit more expensive compared to other vinyl tapes in the market, but it's a worthy investment because it does not leave any residue nor peel off the car's paint. Place a drain pan at the end of the drain apron.
You hit two birds with one stone when you use the drain pan. You can use it to store rinse water, while also collecting water that you used to rinse off chemicals from the plating process. One way to secure this setup is by attaching an apron bar to make sure everything stays in place while you're working. It keeps water from falling off the drain apron and away from the drain pan.
The Plating Begins
It's best if you can quickly finish setting up so you can start plating at the soonest possible time. If you have a cart that holds all the materials (plating solutions and handles included), make sure that it's beside you once you start working.
There are different polarities, current cut-off levels, and polarities required in each step of the plating process. This is the reason why it helps if you can color code the bottles you use so you can easily find what comes before or after the other.
Most emblems are made of ABS plastic that's plate-able. If this is the case, then you need to first metalize or make the surface conductive. Once that's done, you can start plating the plastic with nickel and copper before applying chrome.
Then the chrome stripping, or the process of electrochemically removing chrome from the surface comes next. The emblem will have a shiny finish as a result, but this will not have any effect on the bright nickel underneath. This is a sign that the emblem is ready for the 24K gold plate.
Fill an empty spray bottle with tap water and rinse the emblem with a few squirts. During this step, it is imperative that the rinse water slides down the drain apron and all the way down to the drain pan. Aside from chrome, the water has chrome stripping solution so it has to be properly disposed.
By now, the nickel underneath is finally exposed and it has to be activated electrochemically. To do this, an activator solution is applied. Make sure that the charge is negative to successfully get rid of the oxides. When the nickel surface is highly active and all of the oxides are gone, the 24K gold plate will adhere easily tot he emblem.
Repeat what you did after chrome stripping and squirt water on the surface of the emblem. Nickel and chrome residues are now easier to spot and remove.
Use concentric, overlapping circles when applying gold. Once the thickness grows to 5 micro-inches, the gold turns opaque. Each concentric circle during application adds 3-5 micro-inches. To make sure that the entire surface of the emblem is covered properly, repeat this process six times. Rinse off.
Gold plating car emblems is something that you can do at home, if you have all the materials, tools, and equipment. The process can be a little bit intimidating at first, but you will get the rhythm with constant practice.
