I assume that this is the proper forum...
During the summer months, I sweat a lot. Well, I sweat a lot during the winter too. This has limited my pistol selection - here's what I did to a stainless Sig P220 in less than one day's worth of carry.
I thought about sending some pistols off to Robar for refinishing, but I did some mental math and figured that I should just wait until I hit the lottery.
Then I ran across Caswell Plating's website, and decided to order one of their Electroless Nickel plating kits.. They have four sizes - Midway sells them too, but for a higher price. I went with the second smallest. Shipped Priority mail, the cost was right around $125.
I received it in 3 days and got right to work.
Here are the contents of the kit. Not pictured is the instruction manual, which is an excellent resource for all forms of refinishing, not simply electroless nickel.
Before I started to brew the solution, I had to remove the finish from my victim - in this case, an exceptionally ugly Kimber Custom II.
On a good day, I could get the entire left side of the slide to rust. In a kydex holster.
So, as I was saying, I needed to remove the old finish. There are several ways to accomplish this. Initially, I chose to strip it. To do this, you need water, and a substance called muriatic acid. I bought a quart of it in the pool section of my local Ace Hardware for $2.99.
Caswell's forum recommended a 5% solution, so I put 950ml of water and 50ml of the acid in a little tupperware type container.
I started out using gloves, then found that the solution did nothing more than cause a pleasant tingling sensation. I wouldn't recommend it as a body wash, however.
This solution worked very well on the slide and small parts. In fact, simply dipping it in the solution and giving it one or two swipes with a steel AP brush was essentially all that was needed.
The frame, however, proved to be a tougher nut to crack - so I added a little muriatic acid. I don't know how much. This didn't strike me as the "exact science" part. I wasn't able to get everything, so I let the frame soak in the tub for a while.
When I was done, this is what everything looked like. I did not choose to plate the sear or disconnector.
At this point, I needed to clean the surfaces of all the parts. I failed to do this properly the first time around, and ended up having to redo the slide and the smaller components.
When I finished degreasing all of the parts, I had used the contents of large can of Powder Blast. It worked great - when I did it right. After I sprayed the PB on the part, I held it with a paper towel and wiped it off. Then I did the water break test, which is described in the Caswell manual - put some distilled water on the part, and watch its behavior - if it beads up, it still has oil or grease on it. If the water comforms to the surface and does not bead up, you're good to go. The degreasing is the most important part of this process, believe me.
Now for the solution. I had ordered what I thought was quite a bit, but in hindsight I would have ordered a larger kit. I will certainly be able to refinish several handguns with it, but only if I pay attention, degrease properly and don't have to redo half the pistol.
Caswell does include a replenishment solution with the kit and sells more on their website. The "bath" can be replenished up to 10 times, and there are some pretty simple calculations for how much to replenish on their website and in the manual.
Mixing instructions are very simple - distilled water, Part A, Part B, and Eye of Newt. All in specific proportions. 1 pint of distilled water, 3oz of one solution, 1oz of another solution. I used 6 pints of water. You do the math.
After you mix the solution, you have to heat it. Caswell includes an electric heater. Plug it in to an outlet and drop it in the bucket - really, it's that simple.
Once the solution heated up, I added parts. Then I waited. I did pull the frame and slide out and rotate them from side to side every 15 minutes or so, though I'm not sure if it was necessary.
The thickness of the plating depends on how long you leave the part in the solution. It seemed that 1 mil (1/1000in) per hour could be expected. Caswell recommends .5mil for firearms, and 1 mil for parts requiring extra corrosion resistance. Robar's website isn't very clear on the subject, but seemed to indicate that they plate firearms with 2mils of electroless nickel.
I ended up plating right over 1 mil on the parts. Here is the result. It isn't perfect, but it's way better than the previous finish. I now have no excuse to not carry this fine firearm. You can see that the slide and frame internals received a healthy dose as well. I am completely satisfied with the kit - this is something straight out of 7th grade science class. Very easy to do and very reasonably priced. I'll be plating several other pistols and also the bolt carrier groups of several ARs.
I refinished my stainless 1911 as well, which also gave me rust issues at times. Prep was a lot easier, no finish to strip. Here is the result. You can clearly see the difference between the blasted finish of the stainless 1911 and the brushed, more lustrous finish of the carbon steel 1911.
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