Question: Gold inlay on nickel plated gun

[Roger Bleile]

I have attached an image of a Colt SAA backstrap engraved in 1924 by Wilbur Glahn. The gun has original nickel plating and yet the backstrap is gold inlayed with the name "COUCH." The gun has a factory letter indicating that it left the Colt factory wearing nickel plating and the gold inlayed backstrap.

My question is: If you inlay gold into the steel then plate the gun, wouldn't the plating also plate the gold inlay? If you plated the gun then tried to inlay the gold letters, wouldn't the plating flake and how would you sand the gold flush without scratching the plating?

Is it possible that Glahn inlayed prior to plating then carefully cut away the plating to reveal the gold?

Has anyone ever dealt with this issue?

Thanks,
Roger

 

[silverchip]

Hey Roger, you can plate to another metal and use a resist to mask off an area that you don't want plated. I don't know what procedure they might have used back then but it seems likely that they had some means of masking it off.

 

[mdengraver]

I think Silverchip is correct. Masking by means of a resist is also used the same way when you want part of your metal protected while etching.

 

[Cinque]

Hello Roger ,sorry my english is not the bestbut i hope you can understand my Text .
I worked in the electroplating and we have the place just taped that should not be coated.
The nickel sets only to the exposed metal in the Nickel bath

 

[James Roettger]

That's tough because if it was masked off would the masking hold up to the cleaning process? In jewelry plating such as rhodium the item is first cleaned, then masked with a variety of substances such as nail polish etc. Only thing is no fingerprints can be on the area to be plated which here is most of it. The cleaning process will remove any masking. My guess is they super cleaned it first and then very carefully masked it without touching the gun prior to plating.

 

[SamW]

Roger, I have never worked with electric plating, but with electoless I have used both...stop off varnish on the gold...and on one I cut the cavity, did all the undercutting, electroless plated it and then put in the gold wire animal. Both worked OK but not my cup of tea. I also did some gold line borders like that, putting in the gold after plating. A bronze chisel will work the gold and not mar the plating but requires very frequent reshaping and sharpening.

 

[BrianPowley]

Like Sam Welch, I've inlayed gold in a nickel plated gun same way---did all the undercutting, had it plated and inlayed the gold wire.
Never thought about the bronze chisel. I used a hard plastic and beveled an edge to make it "knife like" and basically wore the gold down until flush.
NEVER AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Sam]

I would never attempt inlaying gold into a chrome plated gun, but I suppose I could do it if it was either that or be thrown off a cliff or watch Brady Bunch re-runs. With care you could trim the gold and stone it back and repolish, but that's just crazy, high risk work.

 

[SamW]

Not to mention time consuming, irritating and nervous work! I switched to bulino and steel engraving for items to be plated...then all was well with the world.

 

[Roger Bleile]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I thought this was a bit unusual, especially for a factory engraved gun of that era. Actually very few factory engraved Colts of the pre-WWII period were gold inlayed.

 

[golden forge]

Back in the jewelry shop I did my apprenticeship in, we would use the brightest colored fingernail polish to mask off areas on NPM jewelry that we wanted to be two tone. We would rhodium plate the pice, mask the areas to be left white, and then gold plate over that for the two tone look, the NPM pieces got sent out with the sales reps, it saved a lot of money if your sales rep got robbed.
I would think a similar process with an earlier type of mask could have been done on a firearm.