Clear coat

[Geoffh]

I have just had some rails,wire and some other bits an pieces ramps gold plated.

I want to coats these for 2 reasons

1. to stop wear for as long as i can
2  to save it tarnishing quickly

I have been told a product called "incralac" is good for this.

Any one have experience in doing this and what is recommended

Thanks in advance.

[Marty Machine]

Although Incralac is designed for protecting Copper & Alloys, it appears people use it for gold (military) medals and sports medals etc..... (is gold considered in the alloy family?, dunno).

Wattyl Incralac (at most hardware shop) seems to be the most popular one to use.

Make sure the item is VERY clean, polished and then cleaned with alcohol or something to eliminate all finger acids & blemishes.

Typically you dip the item into a bowl of incralac, then hang the item to drain off & dry over 24 hours.

You don't need to 'thin' the lacquer, but if you do 'thin it' you may see rainbows appear on the surface if it's thinned too much.
Rainbows also appear if the room temp is too low. Incralac doesnt like a cold room.
( if rainbows occur, acetone will remove the lacquer and try again ).

On the other side of the coin, dont hang your item near a heater, it'll either combust (incrac is VERY flammable) and/or your coating may distort & bubble due to the harsh heat........
You might consider (now in this colder weather) to make sure the heater is on the opposite side of the room from where your item is hanging.

There's plenty of Incralac data sheets out there, well worth a read.

MM.

[big dog]

Hi,I use some products in my job ,coating metals.Incalac must be sprayed in warm conditions or will go milky,Incalac in my experience is soft (good on brass that is only looked at not used , not  bells ,name plaques that will be handled. I have used POR which is very hard, it's a 2K for straight on metals but I found it very hard apply(spray).The best I found and is EZ to apply is just 2K clear,leave for 2 weeks before heavy handling (use).It comes out very clear on jobs,warm job in sun or lamps first and of course clean all polish /wax/grime off.
good luck,if you find some thing new let me know.
cheers bigdog

[jpd]

I work in a Marina environment and all of our berths have little aluminium plaques with the berth # placed on the edge of the jetty which have been coated in incralac about 10 years ago and still look great. All I've had to do is redo the numerals in 2-pac recently and was pleasantlly surprised that they didn't blister etc.i would say good stuff considering the environment facing straight up towards the sun for 10yrs+ next to saltwater and people walking on it. Disclaimer is I don't know how you'll go with it over fresh plating