If at first you don't succeed...

 ... learn to live with failure!  Kidding.  Try until you get it right - or at least as well as you can do it.

"Limiting one’s desires actually helps to cure one of fear. ‘Cease to hope … and you will cease to fear.’ … Widely different [as fear and hope] are, the two of them march in unison like a prisoner and the escort he is handcuffed to. Fear keeps pace with hope … both belong to a mind in suspense, to a mind in a state of anxiety through looking into the future. Both are mainly due to projecting our thoughts far ahead of us instead of adapting ourselves to the present." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Giving up hope.  Yep I can definitely accomplish that!  Hahahaha.  Especially with regard to the latest project.

Among the recent posts, I have been:

• Dabbling with trying to make my own nickel plating solution and doing a little bit of testing, and 
• Attempting to clean up an old refrigerator switch cover in preparation for plating.

I've got to hand it to General Electric - at least as they existed in 1937.  The enamel paint on the switch cover has more tenacity than I do.  I was unable to remove all of it, and got tired of trying to get it out of the lettering.  At some point, I realized that it didn't matter if there was plating under what was going to be repainted anyway, so I stopped bothering.

 Below:  What the switch cover looked like when I'd given up trying to get the enamel off, shortly before I began trying to remove the dents.  The towel and wood block are the 'anvil' for dent removal on the soft copper plate.

Below:  Patience and light tapping.  I ran out of patience after a while, and called it good enough.

I added one drop of this dishwashing soap to the solution.  It's an incredible surfactant - helping to disperse and sink floaters on the water.  It also helps to break up the hydrogen bubbles that form on the item being plated - reducing the risk of areas not being plated due to bubbles clinging to the item.

Next step is to thoroughly clean the item, removing all fingerprints and any other oils that might be clinging to it.

Unfortunately, I overlooked a couple of steps in the preparation process.  That's because I'm not as clever as I like to think.  Also the two IPA's beforehand didn't help.

For one thing, you probably want to ensure that your plating solution is deep enough for the item to submerge in.  For another...

Readers are probably aware that the item to be plated needs to have a very fine finish.  I wasn't aware of this, and assumed that the nickel plating would simply fill in the low spots - with a buffing operation after to smooth things out.  Doesn't work that way.  I thought it was ready to dip in the image below.  Ha!

Anyway, here's the first attempt.   Ten minutes at 2.5 amps of current.  Yep, the solution wasn't deep enough in this container, so below I'm attempting to hold it just so, so that it won't touch the bottom or be partially out of the liquid.  As you can see, it's not going so well.  Also the alligator clips on the electrical leads are getting ruined.

Fizzy!  And no, I hadn't yet filtered the solution.

Below:  Fresh out of the bath after a rinse with fresh water.  The plating solution is corrosive (see the alligator clips), so you need to rinse your stuff off after plating.  Yup, it's definitely got a layer of nickel on it.  Too bad it looks worse than before.  Plating really makes imperfections pop out - and it looks mottled, like a fungus is growing on parts of it :)

 

Maybe after a little bit of buffing with metal polish?  LOLNO.

Maybe a second layer of nickel will help?  Let's try that!  Note how I cleverly tilted the bucket over to make it deeper at one end, and added a clamp to hold the switch cover in the toxic solution.  Brilliant.

Nope, not looking any better with two coats of plate on top of a rough finish.

After plating, there is a bit of loose crystalline nickel grit that comes off easily with metal polish.

 

What I got on the first attempt is "ten foot" plating.  Looks nice from 10 feet away.

Back to square one.  Maybe square two, since the dents are mostly out.  Off to the buffing wheel for half an hour.  And again, I kinda ran out of tenacity before the scratches did.  It's better, not perfect.  I didn't have any 2000 grit sandpaper, or I'd have wet sanded the deep scratches out.  Good enough, hopefully.

So, one more attempt before dinner.  Plated, and post-buffing.  I think I'm OK with this.

It looks better than the rest of the fridge!

 Back though to the Grade 4 science project:  Time for filtration and storage.  Coffee filters are the home chemist's best friend!

Also I secured the funnel and jug to some paint buckets, since I wasn't OK with a massive spill of carcinogenic liquid on the shop floor.  See!  I'm not really as dumb as I look and testing indicates.

Of course the weight of the solution flushed the unsupported coffee filter down into the jug, and I had to fish it out.  Maybe I am as dumb as testing indicates.

Below:  Remnants of nickel strips and a jug of solution.  I'm assuming the missing volume from the original vinegar is evaporated or disassociated water - split into hydrogen and oxygen, and gone with the breeze.  I put a note on the jug to make sure the polarity is correct.  It may be a while before I get to the hinges and door latch on the old refrigerator - I still have a full-time plus job, after all.

Well there you have it.  A long lesson on how not to nickel plate something.