Copper Plating Glass

Have you considered evaporating copper onto glass or plastic? This is commonly used for decorative or conductive coatings on plastics & for conductive coatings on glass. It sounds like your component is small enough to fit into a small vacuum evaporation chamber.

I think its called sputtering...

Where you have a vacuum and a high voltage across the anode - cathode with the speciemn to be plated in between...

Its what they use to deposit nichrome and other metals onto ceramic to make resistors etc...

John.

Sputtering might work for glass, but not for polymers like acrylic (plexiglas) or polycarbonate (often used as plexiglas replacement). The high temperature would melt the polymer on contact.

It may be possible, for limited production, to chemically (not electrically) plate out pure copper, depositing a thin film on the surface. I know this can be done for silver. It was the old way that telescope mirrors were silvered. Nowadays glass telescope mirrors are "silvered" by vapor deposition of aluminum. Be careful of chemical byproducts. The old silvering process releases hydrogen cyanide, a deadly gas. Unfortunately, this aqueous metallizing can be wiped off. Possibly, it could be sealed if sprayed with an adhesive or clear paint after drying completely.

Doubtful you will get any mirrorlike results from copper paint. Copper particles and their reflective surfaces (if there are any) will be distributed too randomly.

Foil is dificult to work with and you would probably not like the results.

Yes, come to think of it I remember copper plating a whole load of my mum's kitchen utensles one day!!

All I used was a copper sulphate solution, fairly concentrated If I remember, all I did was leave the item in the solution and the copper was deposited, as STL says though it was only a thin film...

But I'm guessing it would be enough to then start electroplating a thicker layer.....

Maybe though it was only on to metal surfaces? I seem to remember my mum's silver plated cutlery turning a nice shade of copper... Before I was told off!!

John.

John,

You might have made yourself a battery there with dissimilar metals and an electrolyte (copper sulfate). If the silver plated cutlery rested on a steel rack, or was well worn and had some exposed base metal (Zinc, brass), or if the edged section of the table knives was stainless steel, the copper would electroplate the silver (cathode) and hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) would be released from the other metal (anode).

Otherwise, if there was no electric current, it was a very fine simple copper particulate that had precipitated out of solution and gravity left it on the top surface of all of the items in the solution.

Do you remember if any other chemicals were added to the solution, or if you smelled "rotten eggs" (hydrogen sulfide)?

I'm going back to school days in the mid 60's, but I can't remember doing anything other than mixing copper sulphate crystals in water, maybe a concentrated solution?

That was all, no power source or dissimilar metals, i know that the 'plating' took about 30 minutes and could easily be wiped off as it was so thin...

Hmmmmm I'd be interested in knowing why the copper was attracted to the object now, maybe it was only metal that was plated as I don't remember the jamjar being plated...

Strange the experiments you do as a kid huh?

Yes, my friends and I in the astronomy club wanted to finish our homebrew telescope quickly to see the comet Kahoutek. Sending the parabolic mirror glass off to be "silvered" would have taken us weeks. We found the "silvering" recipe in an old CRC Handbook (1930's) owned by our Physics teacher. We were about to gather the needed chemicals from the high school chem lab and conduct our "silvering" project, knowing that the silver could easily by wiped off, but would work temporarily if handled carefully, when we decided to show off for our Physics teach. He immediately ordered a halt, telling us if we proceeded we would kill half the school, because the reaction would give off Hydrogen Cyanide gas! We protested, what about doing it under a hood? He laughed, the hoods in the lab had never been hooked up to any external ventilation system!

STL, 25 years ago I bought a small book titled "Home made electro-plating" or something similar, I can't be bothered to dig it out, and in that the author casually says you need a cup ful of sodium cyanide, a spoonful of ..... etc... and please do all the electro-plating in an outside shed with plenty of ventilation....

That's all he mentions about safety.... I checked the original publishing date and it was early 50's so things certainly have changed...

Not only was it extremely dangerous to follow his instructions (which would have worked nicely) but it was impossible to get hold of the chemicals - In the UK cyanide would have needed a special licence and storage facilities!!

John.

PAUL,

DID YOU EVER FIND A SOURCE FOR PEACH MIRROR? I AM INTERESTED IN FINDING A SOURCE ALSO.