Choosing The Right Akalinity Builder

There was a time when anyone working with soiled base metals could easily clean any surface. Over the past 60 years regulations discouraging or preventing the use of solvent degreasing/cleaning and cyanide-based processes has forced metal finisher to find alternatives for properly cleaning the base metals they need to process. No one disputes that a good clean surface is an absolute prerequisite for proper metal finishing. The old adage “nothing sticks until it is clean” has never been truer for metal finishers. Today, Alkaline cleaning is the primary method used on base metals prior to … [Read more...]

Bury the Dog Bone

There has been a push in the plating industry to electroplate a given metal at a faster pace to ramp up production rates.  Unless you are willing to construct enormous plating lines, the only way to speed up plating production is to plate faster. Plating faster means plating at higher amps per square foot (asf). Seems to be a simple a simple task, but there are obstacles that need to be considered. One issue, and probably the most significant is the “dog bone effect”.  When plating occurs at higher ASF and plating times are compressed, larger amounts of metal are deposited in the high … [Read more...]

Choosing the Right Bright Nickel Process

Bright Nickel plating has been used in nearly every area of manufacturing. Whether it is plumbing, automotive, food service, military, machine and equipment components, or fasteners bright nickel provides an aesthetic finish with good corrosion resistance.  Bright nickel electroplating processes may be in coil / sheet lines, reel to reel, barrel or rack processes.  For this discussion we will consider the rack and barrel processes.  Bright nickel typically serves as a bright finish to provide a cosmetically pleasing finish over steel, brass, or copper. Usually it is a decorative under layer … [Read more...]