Hello, I am preparing items for my first electroplating, which I am sending out. My problem is that I had a fiber laser company cut my shapes from their brass stock. I got these back and it turns out that their metal is not as soft as the jewelers brass that I get from Riogrande. So I decided that I need to anneal everything to get it ready to work. The issue is the faint copper that is left on the surface even after pickle and cutting with plastic media. It is very faint. I don’t want to get into hand sanding the surface to make it perfect. My question is, will this cause any problem with the electroplating, do I need to worry about this? Is it just copper or is it also oxides? The latter of which I don’t imagine the metal will adhere to. I have aggressive pickle but the crockpot died and so could not test this. I never found it to be that much better in any case.Thanks so much for any help. Kind regards, holly
Hi, Holly!
I recently learned that placing brass with a copper bloom in a mixture of 1/2 hot pickle and 1/2 hydrogen peroxide will remove the copper. Just keep and eye on it and remove once the copper is gone. Perhaps give that a try?
Chris
Thank you Chris, I forget about this. I do this when I solder 14k gold fill and it does help to remove some. But your right about keeping an eye. I have walked away and come back to a really wierd mess on the metal.