Tech/maintenance Gold plating

[jbtsax]

After weeks of assembling the required equipment, and doing the necessary research, my shop apprentice and I collaborated on plating the keys of his recently purchased Leblanc Pete Fountain model clarinet. It came out even better than we had hoped for and about 1/2 the cost of sending the keys out to be plated. The before and after pics are below. This is one of the reasons I haven't been as active on the Cafe recently.

 

[kevgermany]

Looks lovely. Guess it's 24carat. I wonder how thick the plating is and how well it will last.

 

[Jazzaferri]

There is a real estate development about 120 miles from my home that has gold plated fire hydrants. Truly. Aside from the selling feature, the developer told me that it was much cheaper in the long run than repainting every few years.

Looks lovely on the keywork.

 

[thomsax]

A rocksax player goldplated his "The Martin Tenor" and his tenor was on the road/tour for some years and the goldplating lasted. He was afraid that the overhaul should change the sound.

 

[QWales]

Would like to do this but in silver for my old alto

Looks great btw

 

[Dibbs]

How did you do it? Did you have to deal with cyanides?

 

[jbtsax]

Looks lovely. Guess it's 24carat. I wonder how thick the plating is and how well it will last.

It is 24K "hard gold" which means it contains cobalt and other metals to harden the finish. Using the directions from the supplier of the gold plating solution, we applied a minimum of 2.5 microns to each part. That qualifies as the thickness of "heavy gold plating". It was achieved by plating each key for 20 minutes at low voltage.

 

[jbtsax]

How did you do it? Did you have to deal with cyanides?

The solution was an acid based and contained only a small amount of cyanide. We used the Midas 6 station plating system from Rio Grande Jewelry and a small rectifier.

 

[thomsax]

So a tenor would be goldplated w

 

[thomsax]

.... ith the same method?

 

[Nick Wyver]

.... ith the same method?

Looks like you'd need to cut it up into lots of little bits to fit it in the containers. 🙂

 

[sdt99]

Lovely job, but I really think you should have finished it off by spraying the body of the clarinet gold, or maybe silver if you prefer extra bling.

 

[Colin the Bear]

That's a sexy clarinet.

 

[jbtsax]

We could start a whole new thread on whether the gold plating on the keys gives it a different tone.

 

[Jeanette]

Looks fabulous 🙂

Jx

 

[thomsax]

Looks like you'd need to cut it up into lots of little bits to fit it in the containers. 🙂

Yes, but that is not a big deal!

 

[jbtsax]

Here is our latest gold plating project, a Yanagisawa tenor mouthpiece that had seen better days. The first step was to remove the old plating using a satin finish wheel. Next it was lightly sanded. Then it was buffed using two different compounds. From there it was de-greased, electrocleaned, nickle plated, and then gold plated.

 

[saxyjt]

I assume #2 is cleaned before plating, right?

 

[jbtsax]

I don't understand the question.

 

[Jeanette]

Nice 🙂

Jx