23 Aug
2006
23 Aug
'06
5:23 p.m.
On 8/24/2006 at 12:15 AM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote:
At least one of my old electrical books -- I think
it's 'Harpers
Electricity Book for Boys' dating from 1907 [1] -- has you doing gold
plating using gold and potassium cyanides (!).
Just be sure to keep the sulfuric acid out of the cyanide bath! I plate
using a silver anode and silver cyanide and the solution (other than the
bad reaction with acids) is relatively tame.
Concentrated sulfuric acid is mostly noteworthy in its appetite for water,
which can cause nasty burns. But fuming nitric acid can do far more
damage, as it reacts with protein. Yet one can purchase very strong bases
(lye) at the grocer's and fuming hydrochloric acid at the hardware store,
so I don't understand what the fear is all about.
http://blog.modernmechanix.com/category/chemistry/
Cheers,
Chuck