Hello MMDer's -- A while back, Nancy Fratti started a thread going about
electroplating small parts.  Recently I found some information for some
sources for doing this at home using supplies available from the sources
listed below.

I had originally suggested using electroless nickel thinking that this
would be easy as it required no power supplies & few chemicals.  As it
turned out, Nancy wanted mostly to "touch up" worn music box parts and
so total re-plating wasn't exactly what she was after.  There is a way
to do this, a way to "paint" the plating on with a brush, battery and
special plating solutions.  Not only that, but you can store the whole
works in a shoebox!

Two sources have web pages so you can get the feel for what they are
up to.  Even though they are more concerned with gold plating than
nickel, usually the gold must be preceded by nickel anyway.  All of
you who want to restore and renew the nickel plating on old parts from
mechanical musical instruments, or anything else for that matter, can
now have at it!

So here's your nickel plating sources:

  JNT Mfg. Co., Inc.
  Ossining, NY 10562
  914-941-1099
  Brush & Bath Electro Plating Chemicals & Supplies, Packaging.

  Gold Plating Serivces
  67 East 200 North
  Kaysville, Utah 84037.
  Sales: (800) 515-3131; Corp. Ofcs: (801) 546-6200;
  Fax: (801) 546-9449 ;   Hours: 9 - 5 Mon. - Fri.
  Email: asi@goldplating.com     http://www.goldplating.com

  Gold Touch, Inc.
  12801 Berea Road Cleveland OH 44111
  1-800-940-7874 (216) 941-7400 Fax (216)941-7472
  http://www.goldtouchinc.com/

Good plating to all,

Dennis Mead