RGRC AP Franken Help

imajedi · May 27, 2017

Nothing but the best news to report. New stem came in the mail as well as the gold plating solution. As some background, when Chris thinned the case, some of the edges were just not plated well. I sent it back to him along with a full bottle of gold solution and he sent it back basically exactly the same and told me he used the entire bottle on the case. I now know that was a lie or he didn't know what he was doing because I plated a nickel, a SS screw and my entire watch with like a thimble full.

I started off by plating a nickel. That worked pretty easily. Next I tried a stainless steel screw without the SS activating solution. Absolutely nothing. Dipped the screw in the activation solution and presto.

So now it was on to the watch case. Didn't really work at first so I dialed up the voltage to 10V and it worked awesome. (The howto was written by Mikey over on Rep Geek. DIY plating on a budget.). Mine was really on a budget because I just stripped some wire I had laying around to connect everything up. The key is to make sure you use the SS activator and then just play around with the voltage until you see results. Once it started working it made all the edges perfectly gold. Sooo nice. I also used the gold buff solution immediately after each application to make sure I removed any blackness. That stuff really shines up the gold and I will likely use it anytime the watch needs a shine. Here's my not so sophisticated setup:

Once the case was absolutely perfect, i reassembled everything, cut the new stem to length, places the crown in the hole and it slid exactly into place. Not sure what happened but maybe removing the glue and compacting everything down helped just enough. Couldn't be happier. She's better than ever!!!!!! Thanks to all who chimed in. She's back baby!!!