Thread: Nickel stripping?

Further to my previous post relating to disassembly of a DE razor - I was thinking that now it has been taken apart it might be a good time to strip the nickel coating from it, finish it off, buff it and replate it !
Does anyone know the chemicals to use for reverse electrolysis to remove the nickel. There seems to be conflicting arguments between Muriatic Acid and Sodium Hydroxide ( and the mix by volume ) !
Can anyone who might have carried out this process give me some advice please ?

Have you taken college level chemistry classes or other materials safety training? If not take some time to educate yourself.

I don't see any benefit of stripping off the nickle. Also I think that the possible methods may damage the base material. Requiring more work to get a good appearance.

I would just buff, degrease, and re-plate.

Jonathan

Depending on how the plate was done sometimes it just peels right off. Otherwise I'd just buff it with a mild abrasive.

Buff it as though you had no idea what you are doing..The plating will magically dissapear pretty fast.

I took the plating off the head of my an old DE of mine by using wet and dry sandpaper. I can't remember the grit but it was pretty fine, maybe 1600.

If an older chrome or nickel plated Gillette,the base metal is most likly brass,than plated with copper,than Nickel.
If you have no experiance with plating, have it done by a pro.

Originally Posted by luckypip

Further to my previous post relating to disassembly of a DE razor - I was thinking that now it has been taken apart it might be a good time to strip the nickel coating from it, finish it off, buff it and replate it !
Does anyone know the chemicals to use for reverse electrolysis to remove the nickel. There seems to be conflicting arguments between Muriatic Acid and Sodium Hydroxide ( and the mix by volume ) !
Can anyone who might have carried out this process give me some advice please ?

Hi there, there's a guy here in the UK that will strip and replate razors. Some say it destroys the authenticity of the razor, but he did a Fatboy for me in Rhodium and it looks superb. I'm not to bothered about destroying the originality as this razor will stay with me until I shuffle off this mortal coil. I don't have his contact details to hand but if you're nterested PM me and I'll look them out.

luckypip,

Mr Dave Glynn does this work in the UK.

(He formerly owned safetyrazors.co.uk, but he sold that.)

He now owns Restored Razors - Safety Razor and Straight Razor Restoraton.

I have just had a peek at his website, and found this

IMPORTANT NOTE:
Unfortunately due to work commitments, no further plating work will be undertaken from 22nd April 2014 until further notice. Apologies for the inconvenience, but I don’t want to let anyone down with delays etc.

You could get in touch to see if he would recommend anybody else ?

Best of luck

Have fun !

Best regards

Russ

Hi All
Thanks for all the advice, but this is something I wanted to try on this old DE; just to see if I could do it !
If I ruined it , well at least I tried.
This morning I put it in a solution of Muriatic acid and using a piece of nickel sheet as an anode applied a reverse current for a few minutes. Then periodically removing it and brushing the surface with an old toothbrush and replacing it in the acid until I got the desired result. It now looks like it is gold plated !
Will in due course, buff it, electro clean it and eventually re - nickel plate it !
A nice little project for me !

Originally Posted by luckypip

...

You COULD get it gold plated...