How to Dip Chrome

Chrome dipping is also referred to as chrome plating and is used to add decorative luster to a hard or soft metal. The chrome dipping process requires a bucket full of premixed electrolyte, a cathode and an anode. The cathode is the piece of metal you wish to chrome. The anode is a flat piece of nickel. Both the cathode and anode are dipped into the electrolyte before a car battery is used to create a charge -- sending nickel particles from the anode onto the cathode to create a chrome finish.

Work gloves
Dust mask
Safety glasses
Metal plate
Copper plate (1/8-inch thick by four-inches long)
Nickel plate (1/8-inch thick by four-inches long)
33 oz. chromic acid crystals
0.33 oz. sulphuric acid fluid
3.79 liters of distilled water
12-volt car battery
Copper wire
Copper pipe
Bucket

Instructions

- 1
  Add the distilled water to the bucket. Carefully add the chromic acid crystals and sulfuric acid fluid. Always add ingredients in this order.
- 2
  Lay a copper pipe across the top of the bucket.
- 3
  Attach a copper wire to the positive battery connection. Tie the nickel plate -- the anode -- to this other end of the copper wire. Dip the anode into the bucket.
- 4
  Attach a second copper wire to the copper bar. Tie the copper plate -- the cathode -- to the other end of the second copper wire. Dip the cathode into the bucket.
- 5
  Allow the chroming process to commence for 75 minutes. The electrolyte mixture will begin to turn brown as the chroming commences -- an indication of microscopic pieces of nickel that are being removed from the anode and adhering to the copper plate -- the cathode.

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