Electroplating

[JCovert]

Anyone have experience or thoughts on plating axles. I've got to use pinecar parts and the tolerance between the bore n axle is a little sloppy. I thing it's 0.091 on the axles and 0.095+/- on the wheels. What are some typical numbers on wheel to axle tolerance??

 

[pony express]

I tried to have some axles plated with teflon with poor results. The surface finish was rough and sanding resulted loss of most of the teflon. It was a bust for sure. I think 5 Kids used some type of teflon coated wire before.That sounds interesting. I have not tried it yet. The fast guys in the street pro and eliminators might be using a bushing since they are legal in those divisions. I have no idea what type of bushing they would be using, but I wish I did.

 

[Guest]

Hi Pony!

I have been very curious about plating objects for a while now.

You say that you plated with Teflon?

Is this to say that you used a sleeve/ tube? Did you plate it? Like electroplating?

Many thanks,

 

[pony express]

I sent the axles off to a service that will coat them with teflon. It's done at high temps. I think the gun company Brownlee also sells a spray teflon that you bake on. I tried that too. Same problem with rough surface finish.

 

[JCovert]

I've spoke to local shops on getting them nickel plated or chrome or ... I assume if it's got a hard surface it should polish up well, maybe better than the stock pinecar ones plus there will be less slop in the bore.

 

[ngyoung]

Maybe try this and let us know how it goes?

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8Xo43sfLgY[/video]

 

[JCovert]

Dude it's to expensive for the bath. I started researching it and the good kits were pricey. I just wanted to see if someone would chime in on how uniform the coverage would be...

 

[ngyoung]

From what I gathered in the little time looking it up is that it can go on pretty smooth if you polish the object ahead of time. You will likely have to polish it again. It may not be a bad thing if you take off most of the plating though to get a high polish since it will likely keep all the original axle material.