How to Make DIY Copper Electroforming Solution
Introduction: How to Make DIY Copper Electroforming Solution
Here we are finally with the recipe for the electroforming solution.
Few simple ingredients that can be easily found at your local stores or on the internet and few simple steps to prepare the most important component of electroforming.
Inside this liquid happen all the chemical and electrical reactions that lead us to our amazing objects.
Please be careful of how you handle these ingredients, some of them can be dangerous.
Supplies
We need 4 ingredients:
* 4 liters of Distilled water (1 gallon)
* 907gr of Copper Sulfate (32 ounces)
* 32 ml of Sulfuric Acid at 37% concentration
* 10 ml of Midas Brightener
and some tool:
* Plastic cup or any other plastic or glass container
* Funnel
* a Graduated plastic or glass container
* a steel pot or a 5 liters glass beaker
* coffee filters or professional lab filters paper
Step 1:
The first thing I'm gonna do is to dissolve the Copper Sulfate in the Distilled Water. To accelerate the process, I warm the water up a little. Then I pour the two ingredients in to a bigger container and mix them up once in a while until it is completely dissolved.
Step 2:
Once there are no more copper sulfate crystals on the bottle's bottom, I filter the liquid through a pile of four coffee filters with a funnel.
Copper sulfate can contain impurities that need to be removed. The liquid must be clear to have a good result.
This part is really slow, so take your time.
Step 3:
After that, I add 32 ml of Sulfuric Acid. Be careful with this ingredient because it's dangerous. 177
Try not to spill it on your skin. If you do, wash the part immediately. Use gloves and eye protection.
Step 4:
Here we have a ready electroforming basic solution. With this mixture, we can start electroform our objects. But the copper coat is gonna be rough and opaque.
Step 5:
To solve this problem, we can polish them mechanically with rotary tools or tumblers.
In this case, I used Brightener. I added 10 ml of Midas Brightener.
With this substance, our electroformed objects will come out of the tank all shiny.
There are lots of brands and kinds of substances that can be used to make our pieces shiny but I'm gonna talk about this topic another time.
Step 6:
The Solution is ready to be use so let's see how thing come out of the tank.
Step 7:
Don't forget to check the video on YouTube.
Thank you all! CuForming. 320