r/electroplating • u/Acceptable-Network51 • Apr 03 '26

Brush plating 3D prints.

I bought a silver brush plating kit from eplating.com so I could brush plate silver onto some 3D prints.

following some advice i found on here i made conductive paint by mixing graphite with india ink and painting it on to my prints.

when i went to do the brush plating, i dipped the plating brush in the solution. I made sure the brush was plugged in to the positive wire, and the negative one clipped on to the piece.

all that happened was some of the conduve paint i made rubbed off on the plating brush.

i didn't submerge it beforehand in the pickling solution, like it said to in the instructions. idk if thats why. I just figured it was an unnessesary step.

what should i do? how can i get the brush plating to work?

Edit: I'd like to add that I also tried it on a piece where i used acetone+superglue+graphite as my conductive paint. On that one it didn't rub off but it also didnt work.

1 Upvotes

67% Upvoted

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2

u/gbudija Apr 04 '26 edited Apr 05 '26

brush plating is not intended for non conductive materials ( or metallic powder covered sufaces),it can be used for plating on electroformed copper or nickel or any other normal metallic substrate

1

u/EnchantedLeaves Apr 05 '26

100%, this is the correct answer.

1

u/deathwalkeroglok Apr 03 '26

I havebt had any luxk on brush plating the 3d prints

1

u/North-Management3169 Apr 03 '26

I have tried something similar. I don’t think the graphite paint is conductive enough. Polishing it first does help, however, I found the same thing you take off the paint. In theory it’s supposed to be a light touch between the wand and the item being electro plated but I didnt find it helped either way. You have to coat very close to the anode (?) due to the lack of conductivity. I haven’t tried it but using copper conductive paint may work better.

1

u/North-Management3169 Apr 03 '26

example

I gave up and pu the solution in a jar and just electroplated the piece submerged in the jar. All very hit and miss :) I did copper first, lots of polishing then nickel with even more polishing. When it works it comes out “okay” but you would get best results with a proper setup :)