Been playing with a "Ultimate Replica Chrome Plating Kit" and a "Bright Copper Plating Kit" that I bought from http://www.gaterosplating.co.uk/ and I have to say that I am pretty satisfied with the results even if it's a time consuming process to get there.

Reason I wanted to do this is all the polished bolt heads, nuts, etc. I have everywhere on my 67 Mustang that probably would look very bad in a short while as their surfaces are not protected in any. I was thinking about clear coating them  for a while and also sending them out to have them chromed, but in the true DIY spirit I finally decided to buy the kits mentioned above.

Here's my plating setup:


1. Electro cleaning bath with one tablespoon of washing soda/gallon of tap water. The anodes are steel and I run this using 12 volts. I later replaced the washing soda electro cleaning bath with a GP1 alkaline electro cleaning bath, but the results from the initial cleaning is pretty much the same.

2. Acid Pickle bath to activate the surface of the parts prior to plating.

3. Rinse bath with distilled water.

4. Replica Chrome bath.

5. Copper plating bath.

6. Power supply made from a desktop PC power supply unit that puts out 3.3, 5.0 and 12 volts.

Here's the end result on a couple of M10 bolts, a very shiny and hard surface with good coverage that hopefully will last a while:



There's a lot of youtube.com videos on this electro plating subject available if you want to look deeper into it. Here's also a good instruction: http://www.instructables.com/id/Chrome-Plating-of-Car-Headlights-and-Parts/?ALLSTEPS on how to electroplate car parts.
The company I bought my kits from, http://www.gaterosplating.co.uk/ also have a lot of products for other kinds of plating than copper and nickel and they also have a great customer service. All my emails sent to them were answered with good and useful info within 24 hours.

I have no experience from these, but products similar products to the ones I used seems to be available from them:
http://www.caswellplating.com/
http://dalmar.net/
http://www.eastwood.com/eastwood-s-tin-zinc-electroplating-system.html
http://www.frost.co.uk/automotive-electroplating.html
http://www.janekits.com.au/mainframe.php
http://www.micromark.com/plating-and-etching.html