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Sound technical content, curated with aloha by
Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Pine Beach, NJ

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Plating aluminium tubing to allow soldering

2002

Dear sir,

We want to solder aluminium (heat exchangers), but we can't. According to experts, we must electroplate it first with copper. We try to plating it with copper but not success, please explain the process, and also what is the pre treatment for the aluminium (zincate ? = zinc sulphate?).

Hartono Hadiprojo
steel - Cilegon, Babten, Indonesia

Yes, you need to zincate the aluminum before you cyanide copper plate it. In fact, you should probably "double zincate" it (zincate it, strip the zincate in nitric acid, zincate it again). But zincate is not zinc sulphate, it is zinc dissolved in caustic soda ⇦liquid caustic soda in bulk on Amazon [affil link] and stabilizers. You should either buy a proprietary zincate or research the subject a bit via a computerized lit search before trying to make it. Good luck.

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
2002

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