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MG TD TF 1500 - Thanks Bruce Cunha

When I received my oil cap from Moss I was disappointed that it was a bronze, copper color. I mentioned that fact here. Bruce Cunha offered to nickel plate it for me. He did a beautiful job. It looks like a NOS part. Thanks Bruce, well done.

Tim

Timothy Burchfield

Very nice.
Christopher Couper

Tim - That looks great.

Bruce - Congrats on a job well done. Will you give us some info about the process? (Assuming that you did it at home vs sending it to a plating shop.)

Lonnie
TF7211
LM Cook

Thanks. There are two plating processes that are really easy for the do-it-yourself. Zinc and Nickle.

For Zinc. I use a caswell kit. It comes with everything you need. It is a caustic acid, so other precautions, such as gloves and eye protection, but otherwise, it is an easy process.

Nickle is even easier. You take vinegar, add salt, put in a cathode and anode made of nickle ( I bought chunks of it on Ebay for just a few dollars). This makes your plating solution.

I use a 4.5 V power supply. But pretty much any low voltage phone or computer charger will work. Actually the lower the voltage the better the finish, but it takes a little longer.

After a few hours, you will have a vivid green solution.

Plating the cap or our ID tags is as simple as cleaning the metal well. I use grease cutting dishwashing solution and scrub them well. Then rinse in distilled water.

Put the part on your negative terminal and a piece of nickle on the positive. Put them in a jar with the green silver plating solution. The positive on one side and the negative on the other (as long as they don; touch your fine).

It only takes a few minutes for the part to be plated. I check mine about every 2 minutes. You can put it back in without any issue.

Once plated, take it out of the solution and rinse it off. You can polish it with any metal polish. Wash after polishing to get all the material out of the letter areas.

For lettering. The ID tags are easy. I put the plate flat, put a line of paint on the top and use a rubber squeegee to pull the paint across the plate.

This should get most of the paint off. If not, a very slightly damp rag with thinner can be quickly and lightly wiped over the plate. I do just a few passes and then let it set and dry, then do it again if it still needs more cleaning. If you mess it up, just wipe it with thinner and start over.

The caps are a bit harder. I used a rubber glove on my finger to drag the paint across the letters. Issue I found with the reproduction cap is that the letters are not deep on the edge. They don't fill well. I ended up using a magnifying glass and a super fine tipped artists brush to dab little bits of paint into the edge letters.

You can also fill in the letters prior to plating. The paint is not affected by the plating.

Here is a good web page for doing nickle. https://www.instructables.com/id/High-Quality-and-safe-Nickel-Plating/

Here are how my ID tags came out.

Noting hard. I would love to see more TD's with the properly finished ID tags.


















Bruce Cunha

Thanks Bruce. The ID plates look like they just left the Works. That information plus your first hand experience are exactly what I want. I gotta try it.

Lonnie
TF7211
LM Cook

Bruce are you saying that the ID plates should be nickel? For all years or for a certain production run?

Tim
Timothy Burchfield

Bruce, never mind. A quick search of Chris Coupers site revealed the proper finish for the ID tags. Should have looked there first. Again, thanks for the great job on the cap.

Tim
Timothy Burchfield

This thread was discussed between 23/09/2018 and 24/09/2018

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