Non-electrolysis silver plating (wipe on)

[spectre6000]

I attempted to revive an old thread where it was discussed several days ago, but no takers. I have some silver plated watches that have brassed. I called around to local jewelry stores to see if anyone would replate them. The best quote I got was on the order of $30-something, which was less than half the next guy. He said he would be using a wipe on solution. I looked it up, and there was reference here to it being used to touch up silvered dials (a worthwhile proposition in its own right). I'm curious if anyone has any further experience with the stuff.

I researched it a bit, and it seems to work on potential between dissimilar metals (like a battery). Anywhere there is exposed non-silver metal (within certain limits, but likely not an issue with something already silver plated), it adheres. The catch is that once a silver atom is there at the surface, there's no more non-silver to adhere to, so the reaction stops. So you literally get a 1-atom thick plating... It would obviously rub off in very short order (and might possibly look a bit splotchy?).

Assuming it could be made to look reasonably decent, it would probably need to be coated in some sort of lacquer. What is typically used here? I have some blonde shellac (the go-to in my head), but I'm not sure that's necessarily the best course of action.

What do people know here? What am I not considering?

[clockboy]

Interesting to say the least. I have watched a vid showing how it works but as you say it gives a very thin coat but it might well have some uses if protected with a lacquer coating.

[nickelsilver]

You can buy ready made powder mixes for this from specialist clock supply places. You can also mix up your own from silver nitrate, cream of tartar and salt. I'm not in the shop so don't have the recipe but it's very simple. I think it gets more than an atom on there, I plated a piece of brass that had a test engraving for a watch project a friend was doing,  ended up drilling a hole in it and stuck it on his keychain; couple years later it looks rough but there's still a lot of silver there.

 

It's usually lacquered though. What do you want to plate? All movement parts I've seen that are white are either nickel or rhodium plated, or are from an unplated white German silver.

[spectre6000]

I got a lot of 7 NOS silver plated watches out of Israel several months ago. They were black with tarnish, and knowing they were plated, I did my best to chemically convert the tarnish. It took care of a decent percentage of it, but still required some polish. The plating was very very thin, and some of it came out of the chemical bath clearly missing plating in some places. Out of seven, there are probably two cases that look OK without any appreciable brassing. Some were close to a third brassed. Two had some corrosion of the base metal resulting in pitting after the bath. I can hear JDM saying something about how they were NOS for a reason, and I've managed to get probably four of the movements running in a decent state, so if I can salvage a case for each of the salvaged movement, I'll have won the game (the game is buy a 404, get it running, and sell it to make up the cost; cheap learnings).

Getting them plated at a jeweler will blow my budget. Buying/making an electroplating setup will similarly blow the budget, but would ultimately be recovered save that I don't intend to spend much time in the plated base metal watches if I can avoid it. The wipe on silver solution wouldn't break the budget for these, and it would be useful for salvaging silvered dials down the road.

If they don't need lacquer for a reasonable use case, that would be great.

I would love the formula for the solution if you have it, as well as any tips for application.