Iron Plating

[ithacaartist]

It's part of the seemingly never-ending saga of figuring out a way to refinish zinc alloy Erma parts.

I've seen a YouTube in which a guy electroplated a penny with iron using an iron acetate solution and a nail as sacrificial material. The process demonstrated was not particularly precise, seeing as the guy wound up with the iron acetate as a mistake, but hooked stuff up to the juice to see what would happen. The result was a black iron coating on the copper, stuck well enough so that it didn't rub off. Enough iron was deposited to make the penny slightly reactive to a magnet.

Viewing this video made me think that plating various cast Zamak Erma parts with enough ferrous material might make it possible to apply a viable finish. The penny in question wound up pretty black, which would match the rest of the steel parts of an Erma pistol, which were hot blued at the factory.

I was hoping to establish whether iron acetate is the best solution, what concentration it or another chemical would need to be, and/or if pickling the castings would help--and what would best be used for that. If this idea works at all, it might be just the thing for pistols with ratty-looking cast zinc alloy frames, etc.

Rich, spray transfer of filler material is done via MIG welding, and it makes for a great weld. But it's not what I mean!