Dorsa with Lorsa 237

[Dpastl]

I'm really excited about this project.  I bought this watch because it looked interesting, not sure if it was repairable.  Thankfully the movement was in good shape, despite missing a couple parts.  I removed the last of the "gold" plating, polished the case, polished the crystal.  I figured out how to Nickel plate the case (which turned out okay) from some sources online.  Super happy with how it turned out!

Before:

 

After:

[JBerry]

Great job! What kind of setup did yo use for nickle plating? The finish looks perfect

[Dpastl]

Thanks JBerry!

The plating was actually much rougher looking before, this is after sanding and polishing again.

For the setup, I roughly followed this guide: https://www.instructables.com/id/High-Quality-and-safe-Nickel-Plating/

My only addition was to put the entire setup into an ultrasonic cleaner with the hopes that it would make the finish more uniform.  If I had to do it again I would probably use a lower current (I used .25A, might do 0.1A next time) as I've heard it gives a better finish.  I was a bit impatient and so I cranked up the current.  For the power supply I'm using an HP regulated PS and setting it to current limit.

For cleaning I used G50 watch cleaner, which worked great. 

For the nickel source I used Nickels, since where I'm from the old ones are nearly 100% pure.

 

Edited September 9, 2019 by Dpastl
Added info

[Dpastl]

If you're interested I can add pictures.

Edit: I'll add more info when I get home, it might be useful for other people wanting to get into plating old watches.

Edited September 9, 2019 by Dpastl

[RyMoeller]

Wow that's beautiful.  Great job!

[Dpastl]

The basic setup:

Missing of course is the power supply, electrode, and thing to plate.  The small jar of plating solution (Nickel acetate) is sitting in a water bath inside the ultrasonic cleaner.  The water bath serves to conduct the sound waves into the plating solution.  I've no idea if this makes things better, it's just what I did.  It does keep bubbles from sticking to the surface of the object however.

The result for me was a nice satin finish, similar to the crown on the watch

For the case I polished and sanded this away to make it smooth and shiny.  You can see a bunch of imperfections but that seems to be due to it being insufficiently polished and my worrying about breaking through the finish.

So, some lessons learned from plating:

1. It takes longer than you think.  First attempt I stopped way too soon and it just looked like a weird thin gold plate instead, with all the brass showing through
2. Get the object perfect before.  It's not really possible to polish things smooth after plating and they're much more visible.  Like most things prep is everything

That's it for plating.  If anyone has pictures from their attempts or suggestions for how to improve the process I'd love to hear them!