I Tried to Copper Plate Steel… And It Went Terribly Wrong (But Brass Worked!)

I set out to cover plain steel with a shiny layer of copper… and failed spectacularly.
But along the way, I discovered something interesting—brass takes copper plating like a champ!

Here’s the exact recipe I used for the solution:
60 g copper sulfate
5 g salt
10 g sugar
5 g citric acid
15 g acetic acid (70%)
450–500 ml water

In this video, I’ll show the full process, the ingredients, the setup, and all the failed experiments until the final surprise result.
If you know what I did wrong, share your tips in the comments—I might try again in the next video!

Chapters

00:00 – Welcome & intro
00:04 – Mixing the copper plating solution
00:16 – Adding copper sulfate, salt, sugar, citric acid & vinegar
02:27 – Distilled water & final mix
04:16 – Setting up the anode and wiring
04:52 – First test on a steel rod (fail)
05:30 – Lowering voltage (fail again)
06:20 – More test pieces: nut, screwdriver bit (fails)
07:34 – Copper sticks only to the clamp
08:23 – Knife blade test (fail)
08:48 – Old lock cylinder (partial success)
09:16 – Brass cap test (success!)
09:55 – Conclusion & call for help

Tags

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