Gavanising

[wrights...]

Is it feasible to galvanise small items in a home workshop? Bill

[Colin Bignell]

[Jeff Gaines]

I think I'd take that as a "no" then.

[alan_m]

Zinc electro-plating?

[SH]

As a materials scientist I can aanswer this question.....

The most common method is known as hot dip galvanising

Step A is to thoroughly clean your steel pieces of *all* rust, all loose deris, all contaminants like oils, greases, dirt, paint, etc. Methods such as shot blasting, solvent dipping, ultrasonic cleaning bath etc

Step 2 is to fill a ceramic vessel with zinc powder and heat until the zinc melts so you have a crucible of molten zinc metal. The melting point of zinc is 420°C

Step 3 is to dip the cleaned steel parts into the molten zinc.

Step 4 is to then withdraw the now zinc coated steel parts and allow to cool.....

I will leave it to you to work out if it is practical for you to invest in a gas or electricity powered crucible, buy in some zinc powder as I don't know what size steel parts you are planning to galvanise.

As an aside, you can get zinc paints which is as you'll know not as good as hot dip galvanising.

Anotehr method could be electrolytic zinc plating using a DC current and an acid amd a zinc anode.

Again, your steel parts need to be scrupulously clean.....

[Colin Bignell]

It is certainly feasible. Whether it is worth the bother is another matter.

[Andy Burns]

Decades ago we had a galvanising/plating company as a customer, I only visited them once, but the swimming-pool sized tanks of various acids, alkalis, chromium-this, arsenic-that were rather daunting ...

[Tim Streater]

You can prolly find a small outfit that does small-scale galvanising. Take the items to them. I did this about 25 years ago for some chain and rings I was having embedded in a concrete hut floor to provid secure points for chaining down bikes and lawn-mower.

[Colin Bignell]

The factory my father used to manage in London had its own plating tanks and enough cyanide to kill half of London.

[Colin Bignell]

Slightly more recently than that, I found that small plating firms were getting quite hard to find, due to the increasing restrictions on their waste disposal, which made the work uneconomical.

[Tim Streater]

Wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.

[Animal]

electro-galv is easy. You'll need a variable psu or car charger & light bulb, & a 1.5v not-akaline cell or its Zn jacket. And a zn salt or HCl. HCl makes a good pre-cleaner.

[David]

I can expand on a couple of your steps

Step 1 is typically a degreaser, such as a bath of Caustic Soda solution followed by an acid pickle to remove any remnants of rust remaining after the shot blasting.

Step 2 the item is dipped in a flux before being placed in the molten zinc bath.

You don't need zinc powder, any scrap zinc will work, but remove the dross before introducing the item.

And that's it. Perfectly viable for anyone with a modest workshop.

[Brian Gaff]

Find a friendly local company who sends items off to be galvanised or cad and passivated, and see if they will send your little bits too. I'm not sure if those sort of companies exist still, but that is what I used to do, as often the plating companies would not directly deal with joe public without a company name etc. Brian

[ARW]

Piece of piss:-)

[The Natural Philosopher]

You are most likely right vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

[Sargan]

Love the step 'immerse in bath of molten zinc' every garage should have one.

[Sargan]

I visited one in Bridgend, the inside of the building had a chemical fog, I had enough in just a couple of minutes dropping items off.

[Andy Burns]

I gave a selective spray of that to parts of my trailer a couple of years ago and it's not flaked off ...

[Sargan]

There is a local drop off point for a major galvaniser. I dropped off 4 wheels, they had them back in a week all nicely galvanised. Charge was by weight.