Front Brake caliper Piston Stuck??

[Steve 940]

Great tip about using a scrap bit of steel and reversing clips to just clean the anodes, although with my new setup, I've just been getting a wire brush and giving it a scrub every time I've turned them round, as it's all one piece it's pretty straightforward with a long rubber glove.


Hmmm, plating would be very interesting but I think with all my other more important things to sort with the 940 I'll just mask the bores, bleed screw thread, and paint with a high temperature paint,

After all, it's not going to be a concourse superstar😀

Just got Luke's front struts to run through the electrolysis tank and I can start to get the struts ready to build up for a swop to make the front suspension as good as the rear is now.

Cheers
Steve

[Laird Scooby]

I was thinking plating would be a longer term solution than paint and cheaper as well using the method i use. You already have the equipment set up in the electrolysis tank. You'd just need some nickel, copper and white vinegar.

[Steve 940]

Hi Dave,

Good point indeed, as I've mentioned it's not time critical so I suppose it might be an avenue worth exploring, I can recall looking at some articles online about plating so will do some more research.

I think my main concern, would be achieving a complete seal masking off some how the caliper bore and bleed screw, brake hose inlet threads.

Don't know if your done calipers, or how best to achieve that, perhaps use new rubber piston gasket and old bleed screws, plugs to blank off those??

Cheers
Steve

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Steve 940

Hi Dave,

Good point indeed, as I've mentioned it's not time critical so I suppose it might be an avenue worth exploring, I can recall looking at some articles online about plating so will do some more research.

I think my main concern, would be achieving a complete seal masking off some how the caliper bore and bleed screw, brake hose inlet threads.

Don't know if your done calipers, or how best to achieve that, perhaps use new rubber piston gasket and old bleed screws, plugs to blank off those??

Cheers
Steve

That's what i would suggest Steve as far as blanking goes. You can also buy special masking tape for electroplating but it tends to be £OUCH.

If you obtain a piece of pure nickel and cut it in half, fill an electrolysis bath with water and half a pint of white vinegar then connect the power leads to both pieces of nickel (one each) and drop them in just like the derusting procedure then switch on, when it turns a nice shade of green, you have nickel acetate.

For plating, replace the cathode with the work-piece and add a second +ve wire to use the second piece of nickel as a sacrificial anode for plating.

Copper acetate can be made the same way, substituting copper for nickel, not sure on the colour it turns but i think it's blue (not done it yet and going from memory of when i saw the copper plating vid on YT after seeing the nickel plating vid) but the nickel plating works nicely.

However, if there is any chrome or other form of plating on anything you WILL need to do a copper "isolation" coat before nickel plating as it causes blisters if not - i have the blistered chrome tailpipe trim to prove it!

A pint of supermarket brand white vinegar is ~50p so other than the nickel (and copper but i daresay you can find an offcut of copper pipe for tuppence ha'penny and a brass farthing) it's virtually free.
I bought another small tub to make, use and store my nickel acetate.


Making the nickel acetate ^^^^^


Bubble bath! Effervescence during making nickel acetate..... ^^^^^


The test piece before showing original copper plating under the top nickel ^^^^^


Test piece after showing a reasonably nice finish despite very little effort! ^^^^^

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_f...anode&_sacat=0

Nickel suitable for making anodes from ^^^^^

Hopefully a bit of inspiration there, if you can keep the current down to prolong the plating process it gives a better finish, an old bulb would do as a current limiting resistor (but won't light usually) and a bit of experimentation would help to get the best results.

[Steve 940]

Hi Dave,

Great information, much appreciated, and good to see you're using what appears to be the kitchen sink for a much better purpose than washing up😀

Was in middle of searching online for nickel, seems a tad pricey as I was looking for sheet to wrap my large bin, but from your information it's more about creating the solution, so could get away with say 3-4 smallish pieces of nickel sheet around the bin to actually do the plating.

Thanks for your link to nickel on eBay, can you recall if you used the rods or sheet pieces?

I do have a whole box full of old copper plumbing fittings that don't have solder in the ends, so ancient I think they are the old 1/2" & 3/4" but would need cleaning up first, also have quite a bit of tubing. White vinegar I already have virtually a full 5 litre bottle.

Will do a bit more further research on the process just so I understand it as far as possible. Perhaps do a few test runs on some scraps first.

Cheers,
Steve

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Steve 940

Hi Dave,

Great information, much appreciated, and good to see you're using what appears to be the kitchen sink for a much better purpose than washing up😀

Was in middle of searching online for nickel, seems a tad pricey as I was looking for sheet to wrap my large bin, but from your information it's more about creating the solution, so could get away with say 3-4 smallish pieces of nickel sheet around the bin to actually do the plating.

Thanks for your link to nickel on eBay, can you recall if you used the rods or sheet pieces?

I do have a whole box full of old copper plumbing fittings that don't have solder in the ends, so ancient I think they are the old 1/2" & 3/4" but would need cleaning up first, also have quite a bit of tubing. White vinegar I already have virtually a full 5 litre bottle.

Will do a bit more further research on the process just so I understand it as far as possible. Perhaps do a few test runs on some scraps first.

Cheers,
Steve

You're not wrong Steve, kitchen sinks have so many more uses and besides - i have a dishwasher for washing up, once i've finished cleaning my wheels of course!

I used nickel plate as shown in the second (?) pic above, fairly sure this is the YT vid i got the basic info from :

https://youtu.be/G-PtnwtOR24

I forgot to mention a pinch of salt in with the solution but the vid mentions it. I know nickel is pricey in terms of £/kg but a little goes a long way, don't forget you're only plating something like 50um onto the workpiece which although enough to protect and colour it (and maybe even polish if you felt so inclined) the standard matt/satin finish is usually nice enough and less likely to return to anything else like a polished finished would as it would always need polishing to keep it shiny.

As long as it's copper it will work, no jokes about only being able to plate Imperial threads if the copper bits are inches rather than Metric! They tried that on me as an apprentice and were told "Yeah, ok" by me but i didn't believe them then either!

It sounds as if you have all the necessary bits and pieces to perform an experimental run on making copper acetate plating solution and then copper plating something without any expense, just a bit of time. As you might guess from my pics above, when i did it it was more about "proof of concept" than plating big things and besides, most of what i wanted to plate was small anyway. Daresay i could get a brake caliper into the tub if i tried, it's ~8x8x12", bought for a couple of quid from Wilko but any plastic tub will do. Came with a lid so i can store it reasonably safely until i next want to nickel plate something.