There are a lot of ways to "paint" a model, some of which don't involve paint. Yesterday, I shared a pair of models covered with metallic leaf. Today, we take that idea one step further with electroforming (copper plating).
Under the studio name The Enchanted Pony, Hope Swinth has been customizing models using the metalworking art of electroforming since last fall. She writes: I’m a jewelry artist with fifteen years of experience and have done electroforming for five years. I’ve been an avid model horse lover and collector since I was a girl, so this is a perfect merger of my skills and interests.
She continues: I like to think of electroforming as an art involving a bit of math and chemistry and a lot of magic! It uses a power source, anode and cathode, along with an acid based solution. During the copper plating process, particles of copper move from the anode and onto the conductive surface suspended from the cathode. Copper grows over the piece in an organic way. You can electroform pretty much anything you can seal well enough that the acid doesn’t eat it.
My prep process is logo removal, sanding and priming. Then I use a special copper paint that has real particles of copper in it to make it conductive. This shows the copper where to grow during the plating process. Plastic ponies don't need sealed, but things like stones and organics do or the acid will eat them.
This is my small tank setup. It's two and a half gallons and fits stablemates and smaller scales. Stablemates take about twenty four to thirty six hours of plating time to build a durable layer of copper.
I’ve done one classic so far, and he was in the tank for 4 days. I think traditionals will take closer to a week and will require frequent rotating for even coverage.
Here's a look at Hope's electroforming set-up.
And here are a few of the models she's created so far. The colorful parts are created with alcohol inks along and traditional metalwork patinas.
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Oh wow! This is so beautiful 🤯! AC
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