Spray Chrome
I´ve been studying this process for years now(with some hand on experience) and I´ll be glad to teach you all I know, I´ll be starting a very small business here in Nicaragua, mostly to chrome small plastic parts, and I´ll grow as the business grows..
In the digging I have done I have found few good details. Technically it is silver plating. A solution of silver nitrate (AgNO3) is sprayed on. This is then followed by a solution of sodium chloride (NaCl). The reaction causes the silver to separate from the nitrate and deposit on the surface.
you almost got it there.. but not quite there yet.. you see the chemicals need to be mix at the same time to maximize results
But why the deionized water? Isnt this counterproductive to the NaCl?
Deionized water or distilled water are used because the water to be use need to be pure or very very low in solids and other chemicals that may interact with the chemestry.. example, tap water usualy has some degree of chlorine and even if left in the outside for 2 days the amount of Chloride Ions is too much. what happens when you mix silver nitrate with tap water? a white cloud that precipitate to the bottom, and that´s because silver chloride(the mixture of silver nitrate and chloride ions) has low solubility in water. It likes to precipitate out of solution as a white precipitate
Thats just comedic at those prices. You can "chrome" glass and ceramics in essentially just a silver nitrate bath. these machines cant be too different from that process.
that's exactly what I thought when I was first doing my research.
Hell, if I can find someone in the know enough about these I could build my own and just buy the AgNO3 and other essentials in bulk on my own.
you can bouild your own with little money, but its a PITA to hunt donw the chemicals and then takes practice to mix them, but that´s not the issue here, the issue is trying to mix each chemicals with accuracy each time you do it. this is very frustrating because at first when you start experimenting with this process there is so many variables(purity of watter, purity of compressed ait, purity of base coat, purity of clear coat, too much chemicals, not enough chemicals) I got very frustrated at first trying to mix my own chemicals, so I decided to buy alrady pre mixed silvering chemicals(that alone eliminated lots of variables, and helped me norrow what was causing my troubles)
i am going to try and hunt down that hot rod/car craft article and call my cousins wife who is an industrial chemist. Get to the bottom of this nonsense.
at this stage is this is not a good idea, nothing worst than a disapointed first try..
thanks all. Anyone else with knowledge feel free to chime in
Stay tuned I´ll be teaching you how to create your own with off the shelf parts so you can spray on chrome small items..
