Working on electroforming some Kratom Leaves

Here's my first go at forming copper onto a fresh leaf. Going to have my love play with the voltage and experiment with me further 💕 has anyone created anything with the leaves, flowers, branches, or seed pods? We are constantly doing arts & crafts and I would love to share more of what we create! My next project I would like to try is using resin to preserve for an eternity 🥰

Very sorta cool. Looks like a tad too much current causing some artifacts growing on the edges. That's cool too.

   I loved to copper plate stuff as a kid in the 1970s. I did knives and tools and anything conductive. I got in trouble plating mom's cutlery though.

   I digress... very cool leaf electroforming. What type of conductive coating do you put on the leaf? Graphite? Conductive spray paint for electronic shielding?

   You next need to get a gold plating kit. Plate gold on copper....And a kratom seed pod or flower. Nice work. Very cool.

last edited by peteypyro

Thank you! Since I really couldn't wait to try this I used what we had laying around. A phone charger, some root killer, and some copper bits I use for other forms of jewelry makin', and for the conductive paint I mixed equal parts Mod Podge with graphite powder. I will be mixing some graphite in India ink for finer details. I definitely can not wait to become more experienced in  this for the seed pods are what I am truly exited for! We definitely will be playing with the voltage, keeping an eye out for a rectifier/power supply to tamper with proper but for now I will be using various chargers 🙃. I believe this was done with 5v although I might have to double check that. I make jewelry from copper and silver scrap (gold, one day!). I very much want to incorporate this beautiful tree in all of my favorite past times. 

Do you have any tips or tricks? What voltage would you recommend if organic materials? Any and all input is always appreciated!!

@Jaime-Lyn I haven't done this sort of copper plating in years. That said,  what is available for voltage? Battery chargers are a good start, barring a variable adjustable power supply. The plating current can be adjusted with the spacing between the anode and cathode electrodes in the copper sulfate solution (root killer). The distance between the conductive leaf and the copper wire will affect the plating current and the coarseness or fineness of the plating coat.  Experiment and you will get very good at this. You have lots of leaves to practice with. 

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