question for jbtsax regarding Valentino greenback pads
- Thread starter Gheorghe
- Start date
The short answer is yes, the green back stays on the pad. If you were to put hot glue on the styrofoam-like pad itself it would melt! There are some Valentino pads that are self sticking and come with an adhesive already on the back of the pad. They were intended for emergency do it yourself repairs and are terrible to use. I trust you bought the regular Greenback pads.
A trick I learned when using these to make them easier to "float" in the keycups is to bevel the back by cutting a bit of the cardboard backing from around the edge. This gives the back of the pad more of a curved edge to match the curved inside of the key cup. Small scissors work well. I prefer to use small nail clippers.
Good luck with your project. If you have any more questions, I would be glad to help. The Valentino pads were a life saver on my tárogató restoration with the less than perfect toneholes. George's glue is great. I takes a bit more heat to melt than other glues, but it holds like crazy.
A trick I learned when using these to make them easier to "float" in the keycups is to bevel the back by cutting a bit of the cardboard backing from around the edge. This gives the back of the pad more of a curved edge to match the curved inside of the key cup. Small scissors work well. I prefer to use small nail clippers.
Good luck with your project. If you have any more questions, I would be glad to help. The Valentino pads were a life saver on my tárogató restoration with the less than perfect toneholes. George's glue is great. I takes a bit more heat to melt than other glues, but it holds like crazy.
question about plating
John, OK I do have a question. In your remanufacture series, you talked about a plating kit. I looked at the co pany you used:
1. Which of their kits did you get, and what was the ballpark figure?
2. Do i have to do anything to my hardware other than degreasing it before plating? Does the existing plating need to come off first? my keywork is brass with some type of plating - not sure which. But the yellow brass is coming through in mny places.
I'm a dyi type of person so i would probably favor getting the kit and doing the electroplating myself, if the cost is in the neighborhood of what it would cost to send it out somewherer to get the plating done. I figure if there was any time to do it, it would be now before i install my new pads. I might straighten out some rods while I'm at it. I got a wedding to play in next month, so it would be cool to have the keys nice and shiny by then
Thanks once again for any tips.
George
John, OK I do have a question. In your remanufacture series, you talked about a plating kit. I looked at the co pany you used:
1. Which of their kits did you get, and what was the ballpark figure?
2. Do i have to do anything to my hardware other than degreasing it before plating? Does the existing plating need to come off first? my keywork is brass with some type of plating - not sure which. But the yellow brass is coming through in mny places.
I'm a dyi type of person so i would probably favor getting the kit and doing the electroplating myself, if the cost is in the neighborhood of what it would cost to send it out somewherer to get the plating done. I figure if there was any time to do it, it would be now before i install my new pads. I might straighten out some rods while I'm at it. I got a wedding to play in next month, so it would be cool to have the keys nice and shiny by then
Thanks once again for any tips.
George
I have used the Caswell Plug N' Plate kits for both silver and nickle plating. The silver kit lists at $49.99 and the nickel kit at $36.99. A 4 oz. replacement silver solution is $34.99 and an 8 oz nickel solution is $12.99. I have found the 4 oz. silver solution at Badger State Supply for $25.00. The item # is T4067 and their phone is 800-755-0351.
The nickel is easier to use since the part comes out of the solution shiny. The only shortcoming with nickel is that if the part needs to be bent after plating, the plating cracks. When plating with silver there is always some clean-up required. The part comes out a grey color at best going to a blackish finish at worst. A light polish using Haggerty's spray did a nice job on the silver plate.
I found it easy to contaminate the silver solution causing it to deposit black streaks on the metal. Caswell instructed me to start with a fresh solution, completely degrease the part, rinse in distilled water, dip in a 50% acid solution, rinse again in distilled water, and then insert into the plating bath. While doing silver do not take the part out of the solution to look at it and then reinsert without first giving it another acid/distilled water bath. I used sulfuric acid for this and it worked just fine.
The best degreasing was done using boiling hot water with Dawn detergent in my small Harbor Freight ultrasonic. It is hard to tell whether the ultrasonic made any difference, or if the boiling water with Dawn did the trick on its own.
As far as the parts having brass areas exposed and the other areas plated, it is my opinion that you will get a more even finish if you buff (or sand) the entire key to be all brass. Another point is that your finished plated surface will only be as shiny as you make the raw metal prior to degreasing. If you don't have a buffing set up it is possible to polish the keys using finer and finer grits of sanding sticks and then "ragging" with a good metal polish such as Flitz or Maas, but this is quite labor intensive.
This is all I can think of for now. Let me know if you have any other questions.
The nickel is easier to use since the part comes out of the solution shiny. The only shortcoming with nickel is that if the part needs to be bent after plating, the plating cracks. When plating with silver there is always some clean-up required. The part comes out a grey color at best going to a blackish finish at worst. A light polish using Haggerty's spray did a nice job on the silver plate.
I found it easy to contaminate the silver solution causing it to deposit black streaks on the metal. Caswell instructed me to start with a fresh solution, completely degrease the part, rinse in distilled water, dip in a 50% acid solution, rinse again in distilled water, and then insert into the plating bath. While doing silver do not take the part out of the solution to look at it and then reinsert without first giving it another acid/distilled water bath. I used sulfuric acid for this and it worked just fine.
The best degreasing was done using boiling hot water with Dawn detergent in my small Harbor Freight ultrasonic. It is hard to tell whether the ultrasonic made any difference, or if the boiling water with Dawn did the trick on its own.
As far as the parts having brass areas exposed and the other areas plated, it is my opinion that you will get a more even finish if you buff (or sand) the entire key to be all brass. Another point is that your finished plated surface will only be as shiny as you make the raw metal prior to degreasing. If you don't have a buffing set up it is possible to polish the keys using finer and finer grits of sanding sticks and then "ragging" with a good metal polish such as Flitz or Maas, but this is quite labor intensive.
This is all I can think of for now. Let me know if you have any other questions.
Thanks John. So you got their brush plating kit but used the bath method instead using their "wand". Or am I wrong?
I will go with the nickle plating method I think. I'll do all the bending before I plate.
I read somewhere on the caswell site about battery acid being used (with the solution), but I'm not sure if that applied to the kit you used.
Now what goes first, water or acid... I always forget that one
)George
I'm sure the kits will have decent instructions, I just wanted to make sure I'm getting the right kit.
Can't wait to get started!
George
True. That is most likely the kit I'll try. I have looked into more expensive bath type kits, but for small parts not really as usefull from my understanding. I was just unclear as to whether this type of kit works better with sulfuric acid. Also, I'd rather avoid sulfuric if I can. Can be nasty stuff.
Caswell's plating kit
I am starting to think that the brush (wand) plating method might not be a bad idea, instead of the bath. Some of my posts need plating too, and their springs are pretty well stuck in them - no need to take everything apart. And i don't necessarily feel like redoing all the keywork at this time (nor do I feel like removing the few new pads that are actually sealing very well). Just thinking outloud...
George
I am starting to think that the brush (wand) plating method might not be a bad idea, instead of the bath. Some of my posts need plating too, and their springs are pretty well stuck in them - no need to take everything apart. And i don't necessarily feel like redoing all the keywork at this time (nor do I feel like removing the few new pads that are actually sealing very well). Just thinking outloud...
George
The only problem with brush plating keys and posts on the instrument is the difficulty in cleaning and degreasing the parts to be plated. I am by no means an expert, but the more plating I do, the more I am convinced that the prep is the most important part of the process. I suggest that you try different methods to see what gives the best results for your particular situation.
Was the liquid solution provided in the brush plating kit you linked earlier enough to do all your tárogató keys using the bath method, and did you do them one after the other with the same solution? They seem to stress starting with a fresh mix each time.
I mostly don't feel like replacing all the springs at this time. I would still take he posts out to clean them if I chose the brush method.
George
It takes only a small amount of the plating solution when you are using the "wand". I just used the lid of the bottle as a small container to dip the wand in. It is recommended that you don't pour what is left over back into the main solution to avoid the risk of contamination.
When using the immersion (tank) method, the solution can be used over and over. Again, good cleaning of the parts is essential to keep the solution pure. One 8 oz bottle of the nickel solution should suffice to do an entire instrument's keywork IMO. If you contact Caswell they can give you the formula they use for coverage.
When using the immersion (tank) method, the solution can be used over and over. Again, good cleaning of the parts is essential to keep the solution pure. One 8 oz bottle of the nickel solution should suffice to do an entire instrument's keywork IMO. If you contact Caswell they can give you the formula they use for coverage.
Nickel plating supplies ordered
I just ordered the nickel plating kit. It turns out they now sell "Nickel Activator" for $14.99. It is sulfuric acid, pre-mixed, and it's the same price I could get it for on amazon.com. So I got that too. Some of the keys are well plated, some are not. I can only see bare brass in a few spots, so I think I'll just polish, degrease, acid dip, rinse, and plate - instead of stripping everything to plain brass.
That includes all posts, so I figured after this process, I'll just loop them all through a conductive wire clipped by the aligator clip, and dip the whole thing into the plating bath.
One issue might be the rings. It took me quite some effort to shim and fit them to the instrument, and I'd hate to take them off. They need to be plated too. I can probably improvise somehow, but if you have any cool ideas how to do surface prep on them (involving sulfuric acid) without taking them off the instrument, let me know
Oh yeah, I called a local plating service, described the ~40 or so parts, and they gave me a rough quote of about 160 USD, tripple the price for what I spent on the supplies. So it reaffirmed that DYI is the way to go here.
Thanks.
George
I just ordered the nickel plating kit. It turns out they now sell "Nickel Activator" for $14.99. It is sulfuric acid, pre-mixed, and it's the same price I could get it for on amazon.com. So I got that too. Some of the keys are well plated, some are not. I can only see bare brass in a few spots, so I think I'll just polish, degrease, acid dip, rinse, and plate - instead of stripping everything to plain brass.
That includes all posts, so I figured after this process, I'll just loop them all through a conductive wire clipped by the aligator clip, and dip the whole thing into the plating bath.
One issue might be the rings. It took me quite some effort to shim and fit them to the instrument, and I'd hate to take them off. They need to be plated too. I can probably improvise somehow, but if you have any cool ideas how to do surface prep on them (involving sulfuric acid) without taking them off the instrument, let me know
Oh yeah, I called a local plating service, described the ~40 or so parts, and they gave me a rough quote of about 160 USD, tripple the price for what I spent on the supplies. So it reaffirmed that DYI is the way to go here.
Thanks.
George
Just IME... but I consider the Caswell kits not as good as "real" plating done properly by a place that specializes in plating. For example I've spent a very long time preparing and plating a small part, probably about 15 minutes or more (if I remember right) and the result wasn't great as far as wear resistance. Actually it was not even close to the original plating on the instrument. I tried differnet way to prepare parts and really spent a lot of time.
So for approx $100 more it is most likely you wouldn't get the same results. You are probably going to get significantly better and longer lasting plating and to save you the time (which for all posts and some keys, I imagine would take some hours). So to compare the price, it is also a comparison of what you invest (a lot of time in the cae of DIY) and what you get in return.
Not that I'm against DIY and the plating kits, I did that too instead of "real" plating. I think it is a good idea to try it. But I just don't consider it as good and I don't consider that the extra cost is just that. The result shoudl be much better.
So for approx $100 more it is most likely you wouldn't get the same results. You are probably going to get significantly better and longer lasting plating and to save you the time (which for all posts and some keys, I imagine would take some hours). So to compare the price, it is also a comparison of what you invest (a lot of time in the cae of DIY) and what you get in return.
Not that I'm against DIY and the plating kits, I did that too instead of "real" plating. I think it is a good idea to try it. But I just don't consider it as good and I don't consider that the extra cost is just that. The result shoudl be much better.
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Thanks for the feedback Nitai. I'll give it a shot, and figure if it starts wearing off, then at some point I'll get the keys replated. But I was inspired by John's restoration project, and if I can get similar results, then I'm happy.
Maybe I'll leave the posts alone - it would be tough to track where they go if I did them all at once. Or maybe I'll do them one by one, at which point I could see how a pro shop would charge a higher price
George
