Looking for a way to dink with electroforming without exceeding my allowance, I started looking at a minimal set up. A plastic box I had, a battery I had, a solar panel I had, some copper pipe, some brass tube, some single sided FR4 (who ordered single-sided FR4?)

I picked up some copper sulfate root killer at the hardware store.

Time to start failing.

Fail 1:

I soldered a brass tube on the copper of an unprinted circuit board, and an inch of copper tube as my sacrificial piece. Then I hooked up a couple leads (soldered single wire from cat 6 I had lying around with hot glue seal) connected it to a 12v solar panel I had on hand. Long strings of copper (I heard a guy call them dendrites, but I don't know if that is right) would immediately form but it didn't stick. There was also a lot of black oxidation and visible sludge forming quickly. 

Fail 2:

6v lantern battery same thing except for being a little slower process

Fail 3:

AAA 1.5v battery, but this time I was getting some real copper transfer. Very promising, but the formed copper was grainy like sand and didn't stick well. It rubbed off easily and I wasn't making any real headway.

Stopping for the day to watch youtube and figure out what successful people do.