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

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Gold Plating Adhesion on bending part

I am looking to find a process that will improve the adhesion of electroplated gold onto a formed 303 stainless spring wire. I am experiencing coating flaking after several bending cycles. Will an undercoating or strikeplate help? I need to keep the final gold thickness. The Au coating thickness is 0.0003"

Brendan McCrea
- Redwood City, California
1999

Brendan, I'm assuming from your substrate material and coating thickness that this is for a radiopaque coating. I don't know much about electroplating but I do know that in the PVD industry Cr or Ti is used as an undercoat to make Au, Pt, Pd or Ir stick when adhesion problems are experienced.

John Davis
- Berthoud, Colorado, USA
1999

Mr. McCrea:

To get electroplating to adhere to a surface, the surface needs to be active. Because stainless steel naturally passivates in air, it is virtually always necessary to activate it. The "standard operating procedure" is to use a Wood's Nickel Strike -- do you presently nickel strike?

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

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