Within the last year I purchased a set of late 50's Slingerland Radio Kings. The hardware is nickel plated. I've been going through these cleaning them up, polishing things, repainting the hoops etc, the usual type of thing. The problem is that when you get one thing looking good it makes everthing aorund it look worse, and some of the plated parts were somewhat marginal. I scrounged enough good lugs, but a couple of the hoops were pretty bad, and a lot of the plating on the Bass drum t-rods was worn off. I had the rims replated at a professional shop with good results, but it was very expensive. If I took all the parts that needed refreshing to the plater it would have cost me more than the drums did, so I decided to try my hand at electroplating.

I bought a 3 gallon nickel kit for $250 from Caswell plating (www.caswellplating.com) and borrowed a power supply from a friend. I sat and looked at it all for a few weeks trying to find the time and courage to try it out. Well I finally did so last weekend, trying it out on a couple of the T-rods and a floor tom leg bracket. I am very happy with the results. You do need to be sure that everything is cleaned, polished and properly prepared before plating, but when you do it really looks great. I finished the rest of the t-rods this weekend, along with a few motorcycle parts. At this point I figure I'm inching into the black compared to having these done professionally, which was estimated at about $10-12 per t-rod or small bracket.

The current setup is good for small parts that fit in a 3 gallon tank. I need to cook up a special tank for things like stands, and another for hoops.

At some point I'll try my hand with lugs, but they will need a to be plated with "flash copper" before nickel because they are made of pot metal.

Recommended for the dedicated restorer/tinkerer.