On the second TAF that I’m restoring, all the mechs/metal work were quite rusty, so the owner wanted it all to be re-plated so it would be nice and shiny again.
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Unfortunately there isn’t any local zinc platers near me anymore and the quotes I was getting were extremely high imo. Plus my biggest concern was if any parts were to go missing in the process, I couldn't easily drive down to them to chase them up.
So I thought I’d give it a go myself


. After quite a-bit of research, I assembled all parts and chemicals needed to do the job.
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First job, was the night before I placed all the mechs etc into a tub of white vinegar. Approximately 12 hours later all the old rust and zinc plating had been completely removed. However it’s important to leave everything submerged as if removed, within 30 minutes they would start rusting. Everything would get another clean/degrease during the plating process.
Next up I added the various chemicals to the specific tubs and heated them up.
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I decided to do a zinc and nickel mix as from my research, you get a nicer finish.
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After a couple of hours to leave everything to heat up, I plated few test pieces to how they came out……………..**** was the answer to that!
After some head scratching

, I figured out that I had the amperage set to low, so the zinc/nickel wasn’t really transferring to the parts. I also wasn’t moving the items from side to side when dipped in the clear passivate solution. Once I got the amperage spot on, I started on all TAF parts.
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Once out of the final dip, I used an heat gun to start the drying process. However after a couple of hours I realised that I was running out of room to hang everything up to to dry, so I quickly knocked up a couple of drying racks.
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The whole process took me the whole weekend as I did every single parts and obviously was doing it all in small batches. There is another zinc plating method called barrel plating, in which everything get plated together. However the finish isn’t as good imo.
Overall I’m well pleased with how it’s all come out. All the parts are now nice and shiny again and ready to be rebuilt.
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