if anyone would know, you guys would - electroplating

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I want to make a custom lightsaber. I'm going to get some fabricated aluminum parts and polish out any scratches, milling marks, turning lines or imperfections out and I'm hoping to electroplate them and giving them a coat of ruthenium, a very handsome dark nickel-like finish and then using a hand wand to do some detailing in gold.

I never took chemistry in high school. Please keep that in mind when replying.

I was shown a video on copper bath electroplating. He hung 2 cathodes and an anode (center) from the top of a plastic pail, connected red leads to the cathodes and a black lead the the anode. All three rods appeared to be copper. I don't know if that matters at all and if someone could use steel. He then sacrificial copper on the cathodes and what he wanted the copper on, he hung from the anode. He poured in some kind of blue solution which contained or was purely sulfuric acid. We had a magnetic stirrer under the pail to keep the solution moving.

Now, I'm wondering if I can take the ruthenium in place of the copper and it'll apply itself to the aluminum.

Also, does it matter what grade or stock the aluminum is?

I'm guessing I'll have to strip off the ruthenium finish on the areas where I want to apply the gold touches or mask them off when plating or do the gold first. That way, the ruthenium won't attack to the gold, only the bare aluminum.

Thanks so much for your help!

Because of the highly toxic chemicals and heavy metals involved it would be best to have this done by a plating company. Electroless nickel plating might be a better low cost option. It is relatively non-toxic and you can buy the kits from an auto supply shop.

cool. Do you know if I can have the precision and control of where the plating goes? What about various metal finishes like gold, brass, copper and bronze?

If you're using aluminum, it's anodizing you need to look into, not electroplating. Fortunately, anodizing is REALLY cheap and easy, and can be done in almost any color you like. There are many online guides for how to do it on the cheap, just google "DIY anodizing" and you'll come up with plenty. If I recall, the equipment you'll need is like a plastic cooler, some wires, and a battery charger, and some low strength acid, it's pretty easy stuff to come up with.

ehh, I don't know. With electroplating, there's a rich, lustrous sheen to the metal. Anodization is much more a matte finish.

Can someone control it like do it only in specific areas of the metal instead of all over?

Electroless nickel plating that I have done produces a light, shiny gold color. I'm not sure if there are different colors available.

Aluminum is one of the more difficult metals to electroplate, but it can be done. First you have to go through a process that coats it with zinc, and then you can plate it with either copper or nickel, before you can plate it with gold, etc......I don't know if ruthenium would be available to a person with some sort of license, so it might be better to go with a good nickel-chrome finish, which is readily available to anyone. Silver is readily available too, but would oxidize pretty fast, so that might not be a good option, even though it would look really nice when new. Gold plate is really common too, so you won't have any problem finding the supplies for that that.


Plan on failing a couple times before you get it right, as aluminum is a pain-in-the-ass to prepare properly for plating. But, once you get the zinc/zincate coating successfully adhered, you should be good to go. As far as plating specific areas....I've never done it before, so I'd have to guess that you'd need to tape off the areas you don't want re-plated, with some kind of making tape, and make sure you cover it well, possible doubled, to avoid the acid/solution leaking through. I'd experiment with different kinds of tape/coverings first, by dipping them in the solution first, wrapped around a piece of scrap metal or something, to make sure they'll survive the process. Then, you will be sure that you don't ruin your masterpiece, when it comes time for the final coats.