Small Parts Plating

From nickel plating as a standard finish to custom gold plated guns made for royalty, plating has been around almost as long as firearms themselves. Most of us think of plating as something that must be performed in a large shop full of tanks and hazardous chemicals. For some types of plating this would be correct, however, there are many types of plating that can be done on firearms parts at home with only a modest outlay of cash and no special tools.

Texas Platers Supply has been offering easy to use plating kits for many years. Kits are offered in Nickel, Pure Silver and 24 karat Gold with prices ranging from just under $30 for Nickel to just under $80 for Gold. The chemicals are poisonous if taken internally so keep them out of the reach of children. The only supplies you will have to provide are abrasives for polishing the metal, batteries to provide the direct current to plate with and a degreaser to clean the parts so the plating will adhere.

I recently bought a well used and tired Smith & Wesson revolver and thought I’d see just how hard it was to plate and what the results would be. I found the disassembly, polishing and reassembly harder than the plating process. The results were spectacular. Along with the S&W revolver I thought I’d gold plate the triggers on my much modified Stevens 311. That poor Stevens 311 has been a test bed for so many projects it’s actually starting to look pretty good.

I’ve owned the old beast since 1961 when it became the first gun I bought with my own money and I well remember the day I walked out of Hildebrand’s Sporting Goods in Broadview, Illinois. I thought I had purchased the finest gun in the world. Ah, the delusions of youth! My project S&W revolver has had a hard life. It has ridden on the hip of a cop for many years as evidenced by the wear to the grips.

It was also reblued, badly, at least once and the sideplates have been rusted and buffed to the point that the S&W logo is nearly gone. Its saving grace is that it shoots superbly and the action is smooth as a baby’s cheek. There are two pages of instruction including tips on replating worn spots on old plating. For comparison sake they are shown here before being removed for plating. The plating process is the same no matter what metal you are applying.

As always, before you start any firearms project be absolutely certain the gun is unloaded. Check it yourself and KNOW it is empty. Then proceed to disassemble the gun until you have every part to be plated detached and laying in front of you on the bench. In the case of the S&W that meant total disassembly. With the Stevens only the triggers had to be removed. For larger parts, commercial rust and blue remover works well for the initial stripping.

For smaller parts, hand polish using finer and finer grits of paper to a mirror polish. Even if rust and blue remover is used the parts still must be polished to a bright finish before plating. After polishing, the parts must be degreased. Every trace of oil, including the oils you left on the part by touching it, has to be removed. I do this wearing latex gloves and use Birchwood Casey Gun Scrubber. Now the parts are ready to plate.

This job is much faster with a Dremel-type tool but can be done by hand. Be sure to remove all scratches and blemishes or they will appear in the finished work. Clean and degrease thoroughly. Make sure the bristles and underside of the plate are well covered with the chemical. The chemical is the consistency of heavy cream so there is little chance of dripping or running. The plating process requires a three volt DC power source.

The instructions recommend batteries but I used a power pack from an old electric train. This is not a transformer but a power pack that some of the model railroad trains used in the 70’s. You must used direct current. One pole is attached to the work and the other is attached to the brush used to apply the plating chemical. The brush is loaded just like a paintbrush, dipping it in the bottle of plating solution.

The plating chemical is applied in a slow sweep of the brush across the part, making sure the bristles of the brush contact the large metal plate on the top of the brush. As the current flows from the plate through the plating solution it leaves a deposit of metal on the surface. Like most every other metal working proposition, the higher the polish put on the metal the brighter the finish. Anyone that thinks any operation is foolproof doesn’t have a high enough regard for fools, but this one is pretty simple.

If you can follow directions and use a paintbrush you can achieve excellent results as long as you remember that the parts must be kept free of grease and oil and are polished to a bright, mirror-like finish. After plating the parts they can be brightened further with 0000 steel wool. The only problem I’ve ever experienced with the product has been when I tried to increase the voltage to see if I could get a thicker plate. See my remarks above regarding fools.

The higher voltage caused the nickel to discolor and I ended up with a finish that looked more like old bare steel. That turned out to be a good thing considering I was nickel plating a brass framed cap and ball The trigger is connected to the negative terminal of the battery and the brush is connected to the positive terminal. The circuit must be completed so it will deposit the plating on the work. revolver. The result was a gun that looked old and weathered rather than a shiny nickel.

Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good. Immediately after plating, wash the parts in clean water, wipe them dry and you are ready to reassemble. Reseal the compound, wash out your brush well with soap and water and start looking for other things around the shop that can be plated. How about nickel plating the trigger guard to really set off those gold triggers, the bolt on that old .22 or the hammer on your revolver? Once you get started it is kind of addictive. AG