How do I use 3DES encryption/decryption in Java?

Here's a very simply static encrypt/decrypt class biased on the Bouncy Castle no padding example by Jose Luis Montes de Oca. This one is using "DESede/ECB/PKCS7Padding" so I don't have to bother manually padding.

    package com.zenimax.encryption;

    import java.security.InvalidKeyException;
    import java.security.NoSuchAlgorithmException;
    import java.security.NoSuchProviderException;
    import java.security.Security;
    import javax.crypto.BadPaddingException;
    import javax.crypto.Cipher;
    import javax.crypto.IllegalBlockSizeException;
    import javax.crypto.NoSuchPaddingException;
    import javax.crypto.SecretKey;
    import javax.crypto.spec.SecretKeySpec;
    import org.bouncycastle.jce.provider.BouncyCastleProvider;

    /**
     * 
     * @author Matthew H. Wagner
     */
    public class TripleDesBouncyCastle {
        private static String TRIPLE_DES_TRANSFORMATION = "DESede/ECB/PKCS7Padding";
        private static String ALGORITHM = "DESede";
        private static String BOUNCY_CASTLE_PROVIDER = "BC";

        private static void init()
        {
            Security.addProvider(new BouncyCastleProvider());
        }

        public static byte[] encode(byte[] input, byte[] key)
                throws IllegalBlockSizeException, BadPaddingException,
                NoSuchAlgorithmException, NoSuchProviderException,
                NoSuchPaddingException, InvalidKeyException {
            init();
            SecretKey keySpec = new SecretKeySpec(key, ALGORITHM);
            Cipher encrypter = Cipher.getInstance(TRIPLE_DES_TRANSFORMATION,
                    BOUNCY_CASTLE_PROVIDER);
            encrypter.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, keySpec);
            return encrypter.doFinal(input);
        }

        public static byte[] decode(byte[] input, byte[] key)
                throws IllegalBlockSizeException, BadPaddingException,
                NoSuchAlgorithmException, NoSuchProviderException,
                NoSuchPaddingException, InvalidKeyException {
            init();
            SecretKey keySpec = new SecretKeySpec(key, ALGORITHM);
            Cipher decrypter = Cipher.getInstance(TRIPLE_DES_TRANSFORMATION,
                    BOUNCY_CASTLE_PROVIDER);
            decrypter.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, keySpec);
            return decrypter.doFinal(input);
        }
    }

Here is a solution using the javax.crypto library and the apache commons codec library for encoding and decoding in Base64:

import java.security.spec.KeySpec;
import javax.crypto.Cipher;
import javax.crypto.SecretKey;
import javax.crypto.SecretKeyFactory;
import javax.crypto.spec.DESedeKeySpec;
import org.apache.commons.codec.binary.Base64;

public class TrippleDes {

    private static final String UNICODE_FORMAT = "UTF8";
    public static final String DESEDE_ENCRYPTION_SCHEME = "DESede";
    private KeySpec ks;
    private SecretKeyFactory skf;
    private Cipher cipher;
    byte[] arrayBytes;
    private String myEncryptionKey;
    private String myEncryptionScheme;
    SecretKey key;

    public TrippleDes() throws Exception {
        myEncryptionKey = "ThisIsSpartaThisIsSparta";
        myEncryptionScheme = DESEDE_ENCRYPTION_SCHEME;
        arrayBytes = myEncryptionKey.getBytes(UNICODE_FORMAT);
        ks = new DESedeKeySpec(arrayBytes);
        skf = SecretKeyFactory.getInstance(myEncryptionScheme);
        cipher = Cipher.getInstance(myEncryptionScheme);
        key = skf.generateSecret(ks);
    }


    public String encrypt(String unencryptedString) {
        String encryptedString = null;
        try {
            cipher.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, key);
            byte[] plainText = unencryptedString.getBytes(UNICODE_FORMAT);
            byte[] encryptedText = cipher.doFinal(plainText);
            encryptedString = new String(Base64.encodeBase64(encryptedText));
        } catch (Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
        return encryptedString;
    }


    public String decrypt(String encryptedString) {
        String decryptedText=null;
        try {
            cipher.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, key);
            byte[] encryptedText = Base64.decodeBase64(encryptedString);
            byte[] plainText = cipher.doFinal(encryptedText);
            decryptedText= new String(plainText);
        } catch (Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
        return decryptedText;
    }


    public static void main(String args []) throws Exception
    {
        TrippleDes td= new TrippleDes();

        String target="imparator";
        String encrypted=td.encrypt(target);
        String decrypted=td.decrypt(encrypted);

        System.out.println("String To Encrypt: "+ target);
        System.out.println("Encrypted String:" + encrypted);
        System.out.println("Decrypted String:" + decrypted);

    }

}

Running the above program results with the following output:

String To Encrypt: imparator
Encrypted String:FdBNaYWfjpWN9eYghMpbRA==
Decrypted String:imparator

Your code was fine except for the Base 64 encoding bit (which you mentioned was a test), the reason the output may not have made sense is that you were displaying a raw byte array (doing toString() on a byte array returns its internal Java reference, not the String representation of the contents). Here's a version that's just a teeny bit cleaned up and which prints "kyle boon" as the decoded string:

import java.security.MessageDigest;
import java.util.Arrays;

import javax.crypto.Cipher;
import javax.crypto.SecretKey;
import javax.crypto.spec.IvParameterSpec;
import javax.crypto.spec.SecretKeySpec;

public class TripleDESTest {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {

        String text = "kyle boon";

        byte[] codedtext = new TripleDESTest().encrypt(text);
        String decodedtext = new TripleDESTest().decrypt(codedtext);

        System.out.println(codedtext); // this is a byte array, you'll just see a reference to an array
        System.out.println(decodedtext); // This correctly shows "kyle boon"
    }

    public byte[] encrypt(String message) throws Exception {
        final MessageDigest md = MessageDigest.getInstance("md5");
        final byte[] digestOfPassword = md.digest("HG58YZ3CR9"
                .getBytes("utf-8"));
        final byte[] keyBytes = Arrays.copyOf(digestOfPassword, 24);
        for (int j = 0, k = 16; j < 8;) {
            keyBytes[k++] = keyBytes[j++];
        }

        final SecretKey key = new SecretKeySpec(keyBytes, "DESede");
        final IvParameterSpec iv = new IvParameterSpec(new byte[8]);
        final Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance("DESede/CBC/PKCS5Padding");
        cipher.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, key, iv);

        final byte[] plainTextBytes = message.getBytes("utf-8");
        final byte[] cipherText = cipher.doFinal(plainTextBytes);
        // final String encodedCipherText = new sun.misc.BASE64Encoder()
        // .encode(cipherText);

        return cipherText;
    }

    public String decrypt(byte[] message) throws Exception {
        final MessageDigest md = MessageDigest.getInstance("md5");
        final byte[] digestOfPassword = md.digest("HG58YZ3CR9"
                .getBytes("utf-8"));
        final byte[] keyBytes = Arrays.copyOf(digestOfPassword, 24);
        for (int j = 0, k = 16; j < 8;) {
            keyBytes[k++] = keyBytes[j++];
        }

        final SecretKey key = new SecretKeySpec(keyBytes, "DESede");
        final IvParameterSpec iv = new IvParameterSpec(new byte[8]);
        final Cipher decipher = Cipher.getInstance("DESede/CBC/PKCS5Padding");
        decipher.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, key, iv);

        // final byte[] encData = new
        // sun.misc.BASE64Decoder().decodeBuffer(message);
        final byte[] plainText = decipher.doFinal(message);

        return new String(plainText, "UTF-8");
    }
}

I had hard times figuring it out myself and this post helped me to find the right answer for my case. When working with financial messaging as ISO-8583 the 3DES requirements are quite specific, so for my especial case the "DESede/CBC/PKCS5Padding" combinations wasn't solving the problem. After some comparative testing of my results against some 3DES calculators designed for the financial world I found the the value "DESede/ECB/Nopadding" is more suited for the the specific task.

Here is a demo implementation of my TripleDes class (using the Bouncy Castle provider)

    import java.security.InvalidKeyException;
    import java.security.NoSuchAlgorithmException;
    import java.security.NoSuchProviderException;
    import java.security.Security;
    import javax.crypto.BadPaddingException;
    import javax.crypto.Cipher;
    import javax.crypto.IllegalBlockSizeException;
    import javax.crypto.NoSuchPaddingException;
    import javax.crypto.SecretKey;
    import javax.crypto.spec.SecretKeySpec;
    import org.bouncycastle.jce.provider.BouncyCastleProvider;


    /**
     *
     * @author Jose Luis Montes de Oca
     */
    public class TripleDesCipher {
       private static String TRIPLE_DES_TRANSFORMATION = "DESede/ECB/Nopadding";
       private static String ALGORITHM = "DESede";
       private static String BOUNCY_CASTLE_PROVIDER = "BC";
       private Cipher encrypter;
       private Cipher decrypter;

       public TripleDesCipher(byte[] key) throws NoSuchAlgorithmException, NoSuchProviderException, NoSuchPaddingException,
             InvalidKeyException {
          Security.addProvider(new BouncyCastleProvider());
          SecretKey keySpec = new SecretKeySpec(key, ALGORITHM);
          encrypter = Cipher.getInstance(TRIPLE_DES_TRANSFORMATION, BOUNCY_CASTLE_PROVIDER);
          encrypter.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, keySpec);
          decrypter = Cipher.getInstance(TRIPLE_DES_TRANSFORMATION, BOUNCY_CASTLE_PROVIDER);
          decrypter.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, keySpec);
       }

       public byte[] encode(byte[] input) throws IllegalBlockSizeException, BadPaddingException {
          return encrypter.doFinal(input);
       }

       public byte[] decode(byte[] input) throws IllegalBlockSizeException, BadPaddingException {
          return decrypter.doFinal(input);
       }
    }