Difficult.
Well bright copper and nickel are easy. They however will not plate over metals what contain tin. For that one needs something called a copper strike, and that is done with cyanide. So it is well regulated.
There are efforts afoot to ban chrome plating on cars. (which makes it hard to sell cars.) Hexvailent chrome is actually a clear strike over the nickel plating.
I can remember when one could get potassium cyanide for blueprint machines. Used to have a bottle. May still have the empty bottle.
Wasted a whole lot of time with you tube vids looking for more info.
Rio Grand does sell a cyanide free copper strike.
The main rule for plating is clean, clean, and clean. Then clean some more. It still is not clean enough so clean it again, and again and again ...
As far as dial restoration. That was an honorable business at one time. Some collectors now want originality. This is a more modern take on things. Basically such things destroy the value of the watch. The process is similar to how currency is made, so in a way it could be argued that copying the maker's mark is counterfeiting. In my opinion it is really about the intention to deceive. What really irks me is when 'fake' stuff cost more than the genuine thing. I spent many weekends for months and years in the 1990s taking jewlry classes in the elusive search for the better watch dial restoration.
When I was testing the color laser at apple, I did use watch dials as a subject. The results were mixed. I still have some postcript programs I wrote on my spare time. One of my current projects is to make a dial printer.
Electroforming is an interesting process. I am thinking of attempting some dial furniture replication. This uses conductive ink made from graphite. Was interesting that the You Tubers who were plating acorns were at the Maker Faire. Sadly they have no reliable source of cyanide copper. Not sure if the conductive ink would be strong enough though for case restoration as the binders are what are holding the plating on. Printing used electroforming to create the matrices and stereotypes. The set pages were pressed into wax, then the wax used to create a shell which was then filled with tin/lead.antimony type metal. (organ pipes are made out of similar metal, as is electronics solder.) Ever wonder why there was a newspaper in the old western town. (they were pirating books) Also provided a source of material for that high noon meeting.
Case and bracelet work is the purview of the jeweler. Repairs can be done with laser welding. Gold here is the easiest metal to work with.
Leather strap making, on the other hand, is a fun and rewarding thing to do. Can be done with used pipe organ parts. Some even use old baseball gloves and thrift store purses and shoes.
