# Is this thick gold plating?



## GoldUser (May 17, 2022)

Hey,
I found those and was wondering what those are and if this gold really is good?
It looks very orange to me which got me to assume its more than average plating.
Has someone seen this before?
David


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## Martijn (May 17, 2022)

Looks like copper to me.


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## Martijn (May 17, 2022)

When testing for gold, use a drop of nitric. It will at least tell you if it is gold and if its thick. 
A pen eraser can be used to check how thick plating is.


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## GoldUser (May 17, 2022)

Martijn said:


> Looks like copper to me.


I dont have the material on hand. The seller said he tested it positive for gold.
Dosn't deep thick gold plating look orange?
When i look on the left side it looks to yellow for me to be copper.


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## Martijn (May 17, 2022)

No. Gold is gold colored. 
Gold chloride gets orange when more concentrated. 
Thicker plating tends to look a bit dull. Less shiny.


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## GoldUser (May 17, 2022)

Martijn said:


> No. Gold is gold colored.
> Gold chloride gets orange when more concentrated.
> Thicker plating tends to look a bit dull. Less shiny.


Thanks


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## BlackLabel (May 18, 2022)

It has no functionality beside shielding.
It hasn't to withstand any plug-in/plug-out movement.
It hasn't to have any good conductivity.

If a manufacturer is able to control the thickness of the plating, he won't spent more gold than needed.


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## nwinther (May 18, 2022)

BlackLabel said:


> It has no functionality beside shielding.
> It hasn't to withstand any plug-in/plug-out movement.
> It hasn't to have any good conductivity.
> 
> If a manufacturer is able to control the thickness of the plating, he won't spent more gold than needed.


Well, sometimes they do it as a decorative "prestige"-element on a product. "Because we can". Like gold leaf on furniture or fixtures.

This doesn't look like that, though.


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## macfixer01 (Jun 9, 2022)

Those are trimmings from circuitboard panel manufacturing. If you have circuit boards made they take multiple copies of your design and place them onto a standard sized panel that their equipment is set up to handle. After the boards are etched, drilled, plated, and have solder mask and silk-screening applied, they cut them apart and the remaining material around the outside edges is what is shown in your picture.

Damn, another one! Just realized I’m replying to an old thread. Maybe somebody can use the info?


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## Daniel0007a (Sep 27, 2022)

Hmm, I am always interested in a method of plating gold to steel or titanium without using cyanide salts. While my method of using a cellphone for dissolving gold in solution was successful the amount of gold in 1 L was around 100 mg. I plan to do a similar thing with control heat (Propane) but before I do that I need to dissolve gold foils (very thin gold bars) in HCl 31% and 35% H202. 

The last time I did this I dissolved copper, tin, lead, nickel, some gold, and other metals into a very strong acidic solution. 
​


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## Daniel0007a (Sep 27, 2022)

The process I know is very complex break down gold into the solution of chloroauric acid and plate it onto titanium.








Chloroauric acid - Wikipedia







en.wikipedia.org


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## Daniel0007a (Sep 27, 2022)

And yes I know this is a bit off topic.


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## Yggdrasil (Sep 28, 2022)

Plating is a science of itself, and a quite complex one.
It needs months studying to get a durable good bonding, and it NEEDS very pure reagents.
Nothing you can get by dissolving anything not fine gold already and proper pure chemicals.


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## Daniel0007a (Sep 28, 2022)

Well I have plated art with sodium dichromate to steel, silver plating, etc. That is 30 g of sodium dichromate in 500 ml of water.


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## Daniel0007a (Sep 28, 2022)

Yes, I am Yggdrasil quite familiar with plating techniques I have done a lot of planting of Nickel and tin to copper pipes. I have even combined Vanadyl sulfate, Pure ethylene glycol and 31% hydrochloric acid to plate a ligand complex of Vanadium to copper. It turns green in color once urethane is coated. A lovely emerald green.


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## rickbb (Sep 29, 2022)

It might be difficult to get gold to "stick" to titanium. Most platers would plate with copper first then gold on that. Not saying you can't get it plated straight, but durability would suffer.


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## Daniel0007a (Sep 29, 2022)

Well it is not pure gold but copper, tin, and lead with nickel. I have nickel sheets that I could add to the solution to increasing the nickel concentration but I am afraid this contaminates my results. I found that the H202/HCl especially at 35% H202 100 ml to 31 percent HCl 500 ml could cause the tin-lead to fall out of the solution requiring filtering with Polypropylene fiber from a mask. Thus I may be able to quickly remove any sludge if it forms.

I am not sure if increasing Ni concentrations would work well.


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## Daniel0007a (Sep 29, 2022)

Also in Quebec owning Nitric acid is difficult and often very restricted.


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## Yggdrasil (Sep 29, 2022)

Daniel0007a said:


> Well it is not pure gold but copper, tin, and lead with nickel. I have nickel sheets that I could add to the solution to increasing the nickel concentration but I am afraid this contaminates my results. I found that the H202/HCl especially at 35% H202 100 ml to 31 percent HCl 500 ml could cause the tin-lead to fall out of the solution requiring filtering with Polypropylene fiber from a mask. Thus I may be able to quickly remove any sludge if it forms.
> 
> I am not sure if increasing Ni concentrations would work well.


You always plate one metal at a time.
Different metals need different voltages dependent on the situation.
The “plating” picture you have, is not proper plating. It is more a cementing.
As you can see it is also peeling off.


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## Daniel0007a (Sep 29, 2022)

Yes when I first did it it was tricky I plan to soak the titanium in H202/HCl for a few hours blot dry them with paper or towel and hit the titanium with propane. It a passive method of electroplating gold to titanium. Thin sheet of titanium works the best I found while thicker steel plates were very heavy and hard to work with.


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## Yggdrasil (Sep 29, 2022)

What you describe sounds like cementing. If you do not use electricity it is not electro plating. 
You cement the Gold to the Titanium since it is a less noble metal.
The bonding will not be very good.


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## Yggdrasil (Sep 29, 2022)

Daniel0007a said:


> Also in Quebec owning Nitric acid is difficult and often very restricted.


How does this relate to this thread?


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## Daniel0007a (Sep 29, 2022)

Nickel Plating Copper Without Electricity or Activator Indirect plating with heat. A little different tho.


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## Yggdrasil (Sep 29, 2022)

Daniel0007a said:


> Nickel Plating Copper Without Electricity or Activator Indirect plating with heat. A little different tho.


It is like ENIG, but what they have in common that it is actually a cementing (displacement) reaction.
It still needs pure reagents and the correct material to plate onto.
Gold bonds quite nice to Nickel.
That is how the Gold usually is bonded to the PCBs. If greater thickness is required then electro plating onto Nickel is usually how it is done.


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## BlackLabel (Sep 29, 2022)

Daniel,
I'm sure, it's not only me.
If I think, I understood what you're trying to do, you change your plans or you're talking about something totally different.

What do you want (your goal)?
How do you want to do it?

Maybe you better should ask BEFORE you change your plan.

And: If you like to plate something with copper then zinc and finally with gold, you can't alloy these three metals together into one anode.


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## Daniel0007a (Sep 30, 2022)

It is possible to plate things passively like if you add copper chloride and H202 to stainless steel. 



Metals can plate one after another like this, I could have taken this knife and plated nickel to the subtrate.


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## Daniel0007a (Sep 30, 2022)

Passive plating tech work too.


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## Yggdrasil (Sep 30, 2022)

Daniel0007a said:


> It is possible to plate things passively like if you add copper chloride and H202 to stainless steel.
> 
> 
> 
> Metals can plate one after another like this, I could have taken this knife and plated nickel to the subtrate.



There is no need for H2O2, and the passive plating you are talking about is basically cementing.
What it is not is Electroplating.
If you keep track of the electromotive series you can plate different plating onto each other.
But I doubt adhesion is strong. 
Even when electroplating one often can pull the plated layer off the underlying metal if its not done correctly.


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## Shark (Sep 30, 2022)

Commercial copper refineries use stainless steel to process copper. Almost exactly the same as that knife blade does. They even use robotics to peel the layer of copper off by slightly flexing the stainless sheet to start the peeling process. A small time copper refiner I spent much time talking to used razor knifes and flexed the stainless sheets by hand and peeled to copper after starting it with the razor knife. Plating can look a lot like cementing but in reality it has to be prepped for it to adhere properly or it just peels off over time. I have plated copper to many things trying to learn how to run copper cells, including stainless, iron, plastic and even flowers and leaves. It is way more complicated than just electricity and some copper in solution.


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## Daniel0007a (Oct 1, 2022)

I wonder if could i have gold plate stuff with HCl and H202 dissolved with thin gold bars with electrolysis. I was considering either Platnium electrodes or Graphite. Graphite would be preferred since it cost less. I saw an Instructable on a gold standard solution however I want to try to make my own.









Homemade Gold-plating ( Super Simple )


Homemade Gold-plating ( Super Simple ): Super simple way to gold plate your fav blade or tool ( or whatever you want to plate, as long as its metal :)




www.instructables.com


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## nickton (Oct 9, 2022)

What does that mean?


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## Yggdrasil (Oct 9, 2022)

nickton said:


> What does that mean?


What does what mean, could you please qoute what you are questioning?


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