Do you mind if I move this to the "Tricks and Tips" section after it drops off the first page? If it stays in the tech section it will be buried after a couple of days.
That's fine by me, I know I'll be using this technique again in the future!
Very interesting! Did you sand-blast the fork cap first, or just heat it up and hit it with the brush?
I found a picture of the caps right before I went to Home Depot to buy the brass brush, you can see my caps were totally trashed:
The chrome was speckled with spots of gouged, bare, rusting steel.
I dissolved the remaining chrome/rust with sulfuric and muriatic acid. Once I got all the chrome off, I dry/wet sanded the bare steel. The way I understand it, whatever the "finish" of the steel is before plating will be the finish of the brass. So if you actually buffed/polished the bare steel, or you still have good chrome, you can plate over that and the result will be a brighter shinier brass coating.
This is great! though I dont want to be too bling with my bike.. . are there any other metals you can use instead? or is brass the only one that "melts" at a low enough temperature?
+1 I have been wanting to try nickel plating.
I have too, but electroplating is expensive and (aside from something simple like copper) there are too many variables that you have to get
just right in order to get a decent looking result. I would like to try my hand at electro-less nickel plating though.