Plating on Conductive Silver Paint
Copper plating a toy soldier
Copper plating on plastic is possible with. When used with our CopperPro Calculator, you can now plate on to most non-conductive and metal surfaces to substantial and measurable thicknesses.
You won’t need to do lots of buffing and polishing, as our CopperPro Solution plates consistently bright and smooth.
In this project we have used Conductive Ink (hi-grade) in place of the standard Conductive Paint. The Conductive Ink (hi-grade) is more difficult to apply and cure than Conductive Paint. However it can be transported worldwide and takes a lot less time to build up to brightness than Conductive Paint.
This project has four main stages;
1. Preparing the surface of the plastic model soldier to make it conductive with our Conductive Ink (hi-grade).
2. Preparing your copper plating equipment.
3. Copper plating in the CopperPro Plating Solution.
4. Post plating of silver and gold.
Please note: The Rectifier shown in this project has now been discontinued and replaced by our MultiPlater.
Stage 1. Preparing the surface for copper plating
a) Mounting the model soldier
It’s important to mount you work well before starting as this will make surface preparation and plating much easier. Drill a small guide hole in an area where it can’t be seen. At this point it’s a good idea to calculate the surface area of your item, in preparation for entering the correct settings into the MultiPlater. We estimated that this model has a surface area of approximately 20 squared centimetres.
Screw in a brass screw and then attach a small length of our Gold Plated Jigging Wire to the other end. This will have two functions; it will form a conductive link between the object and the CopperPro Plating Solution and equipment, ensuring a good electrical circuit. It will also be able to be gripped securely in the crocodile clip, making sure there’s no danger of your piece falling in to the CopperPro solution.
We’ll be spraying on our Conductive Ink (hi-grade) to make the surface conductive and prepare it for copper plating. This could also be painted on.
b) Spraying on the lacquer
Adhesion is not so important when plating thick copper layers so either a solvent or water based lacquer should suffice. Where a lacquer is essential and that’s to seal the work piece if it is porous, for example wood.
Wait for 10-15 minutes and once the lacquer is almost dry but retains a little stickiness, either spray or paint on our Conductive Ink (hi-grade).
c) Using an airbrush to spray on our Conductive Ink (hi-grade)
Charge your airbrush with our Conductive Ink (hi-grade).
Spray on a fine layer of our Conductive Ink (hi-grade). You only need a small amount of ink. Spray at a distance of 5-6 cm and apply only enough to block out the underlying surface of the object. Leave to air dry for 30 minutes before apply a second coat.
Dry in an oven.
Leave in a fan oven at a temperature of 50 degrees centigrade for three hours.
Please note that this ink dries far quicker and harder at higher temperatures. However most plastics warp at temperatures in excess of 50 centigrade.
The temperature range for drying ranges from minimum of 50 to 80 degrees centigrade.
Stage 2. Preparing your plating equipment
a) Working out the amps for the MultiPlater and plating times
First, work out the surface area of your work in centimetres.
You can then either enter this into the CopperPro Calculator, which you will find on our website and all the calculations will be done for you,
Then you need to decide how thick you require your copper-plated layer to be and therefore how long it should be plated for. If you are plating an item that is quite fragile, you will probably need to build a fairly thick layer of copper 100 microns for example.
b) Setting up your plating beaker
Fill the rinse beakers with tap water and turn the Hot Plate Stirrer on to its lowest setting so that the copper solution is being agitated. Make sure the temperature of the solution is in the range of 18-24 degrees centigrade. Although higher temperatures are possible, brightness falls off rapidly after 25 degrees centigrade. Plug one end of the black lead as shown into the front of the MultiPlater and the other end into the base of the Plating Arm.
c) Setting the volts and amps
Set the amps to that recommended by our CopperPro Calculator. Then turn off the power.
Make sure the black lead is attached to the base on the Plating Stand and the red lead is attached to the Beaker Ring.
Stage 3. Plating in CopperPro Plating Solution
a) Placing your work into the solution
Lower your work into the solution and start the timer. Turn on Output and check that the amp level is correct; in this case with the plastic soldier it should be reading 0.5 to be increased after after 5 minutes minutes to 0.9 amp.
You should quickly see a layer of copper building on your item.
Please note: When copper plating larger pieces or where the layer of conductive ink is particularly thin, it will be necessary to plate for 5 minutes at a quarter of the recommended amps so as to build up a thick enough layer of copper around the contact area to enable full conduction.
So for example, if the calculator recommends 4 amps, then start at 1 amp for 5 minutes, then turn up to 4 amps after 5 minutes.
b) Finished copper plated soldier
When the time is up, remove your work from the CopperPro solution and pass it through the two rinse beakers. As can be seen in the photograph, your work will be covered in a bright, shiny and substantial layer of copper that will require very little if any, polishing or buffing.
c) Copper plating on other non-conductive surfaces
The same sequence of applying lacquer, conductive ink and then copper plating can be used on natural materials such as shell, wood, stone and leaves.
If you intend to plate on semi-absorbent surfaces such as wood you will need to apply at least 2-3 layers of lacquer to completely seal the surface.
For copper plating on shell, the surface of the shell must not come into direct contact with the CopperPro solution as the solution will etch the shell, so every part of the shell must be covered in layers of lacquer.
Stage 4. Brush or tank plating subsequent layers
a) Preparing the copper plated surface
Once you have a substantial layer of copper on your piece and you have passed it through the rinse stages, you can now go ahead and plate other layers such as silver or gold. If you wish to gold plate, you’ll need to plate a barrier layer of white bronze or silver beforehand.
For maximum adhesion, we advise that the part is rubbed with MPU and rinsed prior to further electroplating.
b) Brush plating a silver barrier layer
The beauty of Spa Plating’s system is its flexibility. You can move seamlessly between tank, brush and pen plating once you have our Tank Plating Rectifier.
To brush plate a barrier layer of silver, set up your brush plating equipment as normal by attaching an electrode handle fitted with a platinum electrode to the red lead and grip a Conductor Strip into the crocodile clip on the black lead. Estimate how much Silver Brush Plating Solution you’ll need with the online Plating Calculator, then follow the instructions for brush plating silver that you’ll find in previous projects in this manual.
c) Gold brush plating
To gold brush plate the item, calculate how much gold solution you’ll need with our Plating Calculator and then refer to the previous projects that include gold brush plating for guidance.