Want to Start a Plating Business?
You can purchase a book from the Popular Mechanics Company
entitled, "Electroplating" by Henry C. Reetz.
It is 1911 and you are an enterprising individual with a
desire to be your own boss. For 25 cents, you purchase the
5" x 7" hard cover book 96 pages in length and begin reading
the introduction.
An excerpt: " In this handbook, we will endeavor to give
brief and practical directions to those about to engage in
the electroplating business with no more technical detail
than is necessary for practical work and yet with such
explicit directions concerning the actual operations as an
old hand at the business thinks may be useful to the
beginner."
"two things will be urged at the start:
1. Use care at every step. No where is carelessness more
costly than in the plating shops. Constant Vigilance is the
Price of Success.
2. Study the why of things. Know why you do this and that,
and you will be more apt to do the right. If you blunder
along, hit or miss, you will be inquiring the price of junk
before you are six months older."
The author goes on to give some useful information about how
to clean and prepare items for plating, with formulas,
battery making, equipment etc., etc. Some information is
doubtful even for 1911, I quote:
" Imperfections in the nickel plating such as an occasional
blister may be removed by sponging the spot with an alkali
dip to cleanse it and applying a sponge wet with the nickel
solution and containing a piece of nickel anode connected
with the battery. Connect the goods with the negative pole
of the battery as if it were in the plating tank and let the
current pass through it for a long time. This process is for
an occasional patch. If the whole work is imperfect, it will
have to be stripped and replated."
Here Comes the Snake Oil - Word for Word
Chapter XI pg. 96
"Business Suggestions"
"When the beginner has finished several samples of work,
which will pass the inspection of a good judge, he is then
ready to set up in business. A good scheme is to start out
with some simple article experience has shown can be done
easily and well, such as a collar button, a belt buckle,
watch fob or perhaps a souvenir spoon if a good original
design can be made. Put a fair price on the article and show
it to all your friends. Advertise it in the local paper and
give the editor one or more for his own use. Get some cards
neatly printed with just your name, business and location
and distribute them. Do not load down your card or billhead
with a lot of useless printing. Work the automobile garages
and try to get their business. Remember, you must make your
business known or people will not come to you. Don’t hide
your card under a bush.
Watch your own work carefully, and that of your assistant,
if you have one, still more carefully. Get a young fellow of
sense and ambition and pay him by the week. Piece work is
apt to be slighted and does not pay.
Keep careful accounts, and especially a book of receipts and
description of goods. This prevents annoying errors. Have an
understanding with a larger shop that does good work to take
jobs off your hands that you are unable to undertake, and
then you need not turn a job away because you have not the
facilities for taking care of it. By watching how the bigger
shop conducts its business you will get points for managing
your own. If you make an estimate on a job that brings you a
loss, you may tell your customer, but do not attempt to
raise the price. It will please him to know that he gets
more than he pays for, and you can charge the difference up
to experience."
