So, in my Monster build I am finding many bolts and parts on which the gold (coloured) plating is shabby, some bolts/nuts I will replace with stainless and some with new as they may also be worn but there are many parts that are fine other than cosmetically and some of these are expensive from Ducati - eg Monster 'hoop' to swingarm bolts at £10 each . I see plating kits for sale on ebay and the like and wondered if anyone has any experience/advice on DIY re-plating Ducati OEM bolts? What 'kits' are good and how easy to use & get good results etc?
i would get all the bolts together you need redoing and bag them up and take them to a local place that does anodising and nickel or zinc plating etc etc they normally have a minimum price so get them all done at once...near me its a minimum of £30......or free as its that small!!
Good thinking, except I'll probably keep finding more so it'll end up costing a fortune with lots of trips. I do like the idea of doing my own though - as long as I can get them good enough.
personally I'd just replace everything with stainless these diy anodizing kits do apparently work though have founds stiggs fasteners to be reliable source for staibless at realistic prices
Will replace many bolts but there are some that are 'special' and so not available (other than custom machining) in stainless and some where stainless may not be the best option? plus various pins & shafts etc so I'm going to splash out on a plating kit and see how I get on...
I took all the bolts from my last Monster rebuild to a local plating place. They did the whole lot of about £80 I think and they had a lovely silver SS look to them – I looked into doing it DIY but it seems like a lot of hassle.
When restoring my 400/4 I purchased a zinc plating kit from gateros plating. They were really helpful and supplied everything (chemicals etc). I think they do all sorts of kits for different tpes of plating. Your only limited to the size of the bucket you have.
That's what I've bought, not expensive so we'll see how it works. The Mrs might find all sorts of household items suddenly get a shiny plating...
