Copper plating trim pieces and activation box

I was debating using some brass accents for my saber build and was talking to my girlfriend about some problems I was trying to solve about the pieces, her response was, "why not copper plate instead?". Side note, if your partner's comments about your saber building is, "hey why don't we try some home electroplating" you know you've found the one.

So, that's had be redesigning my idea a bit and thinking about copper plating some pieces like some trim rings, the MPS insert, and possibly the activation box. Any concerns with fit if I were to plate these? For the trim rings I was imagining that the slight increase in thickness might impact the clocking, but I could probably solve that with a little bit of sanding and not finalising the clocking until after the plating process, but I'm more worried about the MPS insert and the switch box. Any experiences to share?

Not to be snide, but have you looked into the copper plating process first? Its not a single step process. I would be VERY careful about the rules of waste management.

Here is one home method that seems "ok". http://www.instructables.com/id/High...opper-Plating/

I have not plated any mhs parts. That said I have accidentally sanded through enough plating on machines to know it's not typically very thick at all....

Are you going to do the plating yourself or have it done professionally? Sounds like a fun design. Be sure to post pictures!

My girlfriend's dad's a retired chemical engineer who has done far more involved plating, and the girlfriend does cat3 containment work in a virology lab, so I've got the chemical safety pretty well covered. The simplest DIY copper plating for aluminium looks to just involve low voltage, a donor piece of copper, and some copper sulphate so not too arduous, based on the howto I found here, https://www.youtube.com/watch?annota...&v=Q8Xo43sfLgY.

Boo, you're right late night googling for copper plating aluminium turned up that how-to, but I missed that it was a general process and not specifically aluminium, and there are way more steps for doing that. Will take a look at that instructable to see how dire that one looks.

Email Tim and see if he’ll do custom copper trim rings for you. No guarantees but he did a copper emitter for me.

We bought a copper plating kit and gave it a shot.. while it looked very promising on what turned out nice there was just very bad consistency.

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Originally Posted by darth_chasm

Email Tim and see if he’ll do custom copper trim rings for you. No guarantees but he did a copper emitter for me.

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I had thought about that for when I was thinking brass and may go back down that route since I can get a brass MPS insert already, or I stick to the idea of copper and see about the custom route that way.