View Single Post
  #160  
Old 2007-04-30, 5:51pm
Emily's Avatar
Emily Emily is offline
Missing presumed fed
 
Join Date: Nov 15, 2005
Location: Wherever
Posts: 3,158
Default

The Jim Kervin book about Kate Fowle Meleney, which is around $17, has information in it about electroforming.

You need a rectifier, which is an electrical device that controls the current. You hook up wires to it and hook one of the wires up to pieces of copper (if you're doing copper electroforming). You suspend the pieces of copper in a container of electroforming solution. I use a great big beaker, but what you use for the container isn't crucial. You paint your item with electroconductive paint (which has metal particles in it), suspend it on a piece of copper wire in the solution between the pieces of copper, attach the other wire that's connected to your rectifier, and there you go. (Yes, I'm leaving out some details that you need to know, but it's not a whole lot more complicated.) You leave the bead or whatever in the solution for a while -- meaning hours -- with the current on, checking from time to time and moving your wire so it doesn't make a mark on the bead, until you get the effect you like. The entire set up costs maybe around $200 -- I might be low on that, since it's been a while since I bought mine. The rectifier is the big expense. The paint that you use isn't cheap, but it lasts forever, so you don't need much. It's amazing how far a little container will go.
__________________
To those who question the real value of the Web: Sea slugs. Now, please fall into a respectful silence, and don't speak again until you understand why you were wrong.
Scorpion and one Intensity 10 lpm 20 psi concentrator
Reply With Quote