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Hello—I’m looking to have several 3 D printed (plastic) items electroplated in gold. Does anyone know of a company or individual who does it? Thank you!

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I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure that’s impossible. Electroplating requires that the item being plated conducts electricity, which obviously plastic does not and I suspect there’s a whole heap of other problems trying to get gold to bond to plastic.

I guess there might be other processes to cover something in gold, but I’d think they’d be unreliable and short term if handled. If you want models covered in gold, you’re probably going to have to make moulds by 3D printing, cast the models in another metal, then get that metal electroplated.

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if anyone can plate on 3d Prints it would be http://www.epner.com/

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Electroplating of 3D prints is not impossible. I’ve been working on it for some time. This link (https://3dplating.tumblr.com/) contains all my findings. While I have worked with copper, nickel and chrome plating, gold plating is similar, albeit costlier. There is no need for moulds though. Do connect, maybe we’ll be able to work something out

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If you get conductive paint, could you not try to electroplate the painted surface? (assuming the paint does not dissolve in the plating solution)

There is also this:

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There is a reason ABS is used in approx. 90% of plastic plating applications (mentioned in the link you shared). The process to plate ABS does not involve a conductive paint. Rather, it is etched using chromium trioxide or sulphuric acid, creating micro pores which are then activated using tin-palladium solution to make it conductive. Industrial electroplaters use this process. I experimented with conductive paint but the results were far from satisfactory.