Electroplating - Nickel

Nickel plating has a number of advantages over copper. Primarily, it doesn't tarnish. It can also be polished to a shiny silver. Not quite to the same degree as chrome, but it's easier to do.
 

Nickel doesn't plate well directly on to the graphite paint. It has a much better adherence when there is a layer of copper underneath.  You can read about how this is done in my other blog post.

Once you've got your copper layer, it's time for the nickel.

Copper plating requires the metal salt copper sulfate to act as an electrolyte. Nickel uses nickel acetate. It's possible to buy this online, but it's not quite as readily available as copper sulfate. So we're going to make our own.

The process is simple, if we force nickel ions to dissolve in a solution of acetic acid (vinegar) it will form nickel acetate.

Buy some basic distilled vinegar from the grocery store. Fill a jar with it, add a pinch of salt. Then attach pure nickel to the anode and cathode of your power supply. Running at 5 - 10 Volts it will take 12 - 24 hours to get an adequate solution. Pictured below is after just a few hours.

After you have your solution, it's the exact same process as the copper plating.  I won't go into that here. but you can read about the process in the other post :)

One thing of note, is nickel is a hard metal. About as hard as steel. This makes it hard to polish with steel brushes (Unlike Copper). So you have to use something a little more serious. Once I figure out how to use polishing compounds I'll write a post about that one too :D