I've done a fair amount of electroplating at home to restore smaller vintage items (mostly old razors). If you a little research and shop around for the materials, it can be done fairly reasonably. It is fun for the learning experience, but you would need to plate a lot of items to make it financially beneficial. However, it is rewarding to bring something back to life that is 50-100 years old. I would guesstimate that you could probably piece something together (battery charger, or wall transformer, container for bath) using a few items you may have laying around that would work for $50-100. If you wanted something that gave you the level control to match a shops quality and depending on the size of the bath, you would probably need to spend at least $300-500 and that is if you shopped for good deals and assembled your own system. Caswell is a great resource and where I got a lot of my information when I started. They have some complete basic setups that use 3-5 gallon buckets, but if you are creative, dont mind spending your time, and shop for parts, you can build a lot better system for the same kind of money.
