On Fri, 6 Mar 2009 23:36:15 -0500, "Wild_Bill"
wrote:

Thanks again, Ed. Would you know whether nickel is significantly less
dangerous, easier or cheaper to apply to small parts on a hobby-level scale?

I kinda suspect that both would involve about the same aspects and safety
issues.

The only source of nickel I know of presently, would be rods for electric
welding cast iron, but I'm sure there would be sources of the right alloy to
use for plating.

I think it's DoN that regularly applies electroplating to some of his small
machined parts, so maybe there will be other comments regarding home shop
plating.

Don, not DoN. I plate with zinc, tin, copper and nickle using
materials from Caswell. There are two nickle processes, electrolytic
and electroless. Once you get your parts absolutely clean, electroless
nickle plating is about as hard as boiling an egg.

Plating onto zinc, "white metal" or aluminum requires special steps.
It can be done but I don't do it. Caswell does offer materials to do
this, as in plating die-cast white-metal auto trim parts with chrome
or nickel.

Caswell also offers chrome, but I don't mess with that either. Chromic
acid is nasty stuff that produces toxic fumes, while the chemicals I
use are quite benign.

www.caswellplating.com