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Nickel strike

2003

Hi !

I have a problem concerning nickel plating. I am nickel plating a part consisting of copper, brass, and stainless steel. Before the nickel plating I do a plating in a nickel strike, just to cover the stainless steel part. My nickel strike is of sulphate bath, with almost 400 g/l nickel sulphate and about 22 g/l sulfuric acid. After changing the nickel strike, it plates really bad. After 7 min. in the nickel strike only some of the copper, brass, and stainless areas are covered with nickel. Do you have any comments to that.

Michael Junker
Plating shop - Nordborg, Denmark

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First of three simultaneous responses --

Nickel strike should contain the following ingredients: Nickel chloride 120-240 g/l + Hydrochloric acid 4-12% V/V.

Sara Michaeli
Tel-Aviv-Yafo, Israel
2003

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Second of three simultaneous responses --

Try Wood's nickel strike. Nickel chloride 225g/l, hydrochloric acid 10%.

Neil Bell
Red Sky Plating

Albuquerque, New Mexico

2003

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Third of three simultaneous responses --

I suggest a sulfamate nickel strike consisting of 60-70 g/L nickel as nickel sulfamate, 30 g/L boric acid. Lower the pH to about 2 using sulfamic acid, then to 1.3-1.5 using hydrochloric acid. This strike has better covering power and will plate on all the metals as well as activating the stainless steel. Use 30-60 Amps/sq ft current density.

Don Baudrand
Consultant - Poulsbo, Washington
(Don is co-author of "Plating on Plastics" [on Amazon or AbeBooks affil links]
           and "Plating ABS Plastics" [on Amazon or eBay or AbeBooks affil links])
2003