Electroplating blades

Joined
Jul 10, 2021
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Does anyone here plate their blades with nickel or chrome? I'm thinking of doing that for my stiletto tinkering because I like the edge I can get with non-stainless steels, but I want the shine of a traditional Italian stiletto. I can do nickel plating, but chrome plating scares me.
 
Plating is not normally done on a user knife. If it is just for show and will not be used, do what you want. Nickel plating would be sufficient if only for looks. Chrome is much more wear resistant.
 
Mad Dog knives hard chromes their combat knives, though that's not for pretty, of course..
 
Plating does not make things shiny-it is only a microscopically thin coating on the surface of the underlying metal.
"Traditional Italian stilettos" were made with carbon steel blades that were highly polished.
 
Exterior decorative Chrome plating (like automobile bumpers) utilizes 10 millionths of an inch of Chrome applied over 70 one hundred thousands of an inch of semi bright Nickel and 30 one hundred thousands of bright Nickel. So 1 Mil of brown looking Nickel spiffed up with a coat of blue looking Chrome. Underneath these 3 layers is a base coat of 30 one hundred thousands of Copper which allows the more brittle layers to withstand thermal cycling (like steam cleaning your hubcaps at the car wash in the winter).
 
You can plate nickel and chrome directly on steel, without any underplating.
I have seen knife blades nickel plated, and Case chrome plated many of their knife blades.
 
I’ve tried a caswell black nickel kit but never got it to work. Seems like it should be more durable than paint finishes. It wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. Also hydrogen embrittlement might be an issue.
 
I’ve tried a caswell black nickel kit but never got it to work. Seems like it should be more durable than paint finishes. It wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. Also hydrogen embrittlement might be an issue.
You can get rid of Hydrogen embrittlement by baking the plated part. Do it before you put the handle on. Electroless Nickel is not very hard or thick.
 
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