Shark, thanks for the response. I think your idea of not plating the main casting is worth trying on an old core and just dipping it into the chromate after glass bead blasting and an acid etch. I'll probably try doing it both ways just to see how I like the finished product. After some additional research I've decided to power the plating tank with a 6 volt tractor battery and control the current with various wattage light bulbs. the Caswell site has a pretty good tutorial on this method and it appears this method gives you good control of the process from very small batches to larger ones. It will probably be a couple of weeks before I get all the stuff and get it together, but I'm really looking foreward to playing with it and perfecting the process. I was the manager over the plating shop at Boeing Wichita about 35 years ago, but never really had much interest in the process at the time. Doing it in my shop (Barn) seems a whole lot more fun.
