Well, in yesterday's post, I had gotten all the bumper pieces hit with a 240 grit belt. I took the above picture to contrast the look of the parts (Top piece was after 60 grit, 100 grit and an acid bath. Bottom piece after 240 grit.). The picture below shows both the center pieces after I polished them with a 400 grit belt. The pictures do a nice job of showing the difference. The whole point of the process is to create a smooth surface for plating. Just like a lot of jobs, it's the time and work that goes into prepping the surface that will pay dividends with the end results.
"Look at the forearms on that Scruffy guy!!" :)
After the parts were prepped, Jim helped me hang each part from a hook and copper wire. The parts were then taken through a several stage chemical washing process before they entered the first copper solution.
Think back to your days of high school chemistry class for an understanding of this process. The pieces were hooked to an electrical charge to cause the copper in the solution to adhere to the parts....I know....you're thinking, "Wow, guess I should have paid more attention in high school!"
Well, time got away from me again, and before I knew it, it was 4:00 on Saturday afternoon. Since I had a date with the "Mrs." planned for Saturday evening. (In fact, my buddy Jim and his wife were planning on going to the same place with us.) We had to finishes for the day. Before I left, Jim got some of the pieces into the next step of the copper plating process. You can see in the picture above that the parts are starting to have a nice shine...(And if I do say so myself, the surface looks pretty smooth.) Jim plans to have all the parts ready for me to copper polish on my next visit. Then we will take the parts through the next steps of the process.
Come back tomorrow as I plan to start posting pictures from my trip to the 2009 Detroit Autorama!
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