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Chrome with hairline finish

2004

Dear Sir,

I am posting this question on Chroming finishing. I am developing a metal chair in my company and the requirement was that it should have a "Satin Chrome" finish where after the chroming process, we will use a 00 steel wool ⇦ this on eBay or Amazon [affil links] to rub down the "glare" so that it will have a "hairline finish with a softer background". It will look something like stainless steel 4B. My chroming suppliers have mentioned they use these method to complete the chrome as follows:-

1) Wash and degrease with soda and clean it in hot water
2) Send back to us for welding
3) Rewash again using and then polish/linish
4) Rewash again and then into nickel plating for 45 minutes
5) Then Chroming process for about 10 minutes
6) The chroming thickness is about 15 microns.

1)We have tried rubbing it slowly with steel wool but it still has the heavy shiny glare and when we rub it too hard, it has a "yellow" effect of which we believe it is almost scraping off the entire chrome.
2)We have not tried sandpaper as we are afraid it will strip it off completely and rust will come at later stage.
3) However we do have the hairline effect on the chair.

Question: How do we get this finish and is there any chemical that we should add in the chroming process or is it just a labour intensive job of rubbing down further? Could it be that our raw materials in Malaysia differs from other countries like Australia?

Simon Chiam
Furniture Industry - Kuala Lumpur, Federal Territory, Malaysia

A. Simon,

I think you need a layer of " Satin Nickel " 2 -3 microns, to go over the regular nickel, then Chrome plate the part. That's called Satin Nickel Chrome Finish.

Regards,

Asif Nurie [deceased] [deceased]
- New Delhi, India
With deep sadness we acknowledge the passing of Asif on Jan 24, 2016