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Nickel plating as underlayment for silver plating

I work for a chrome plating shop in Alabama and I am looking at silver plating a steel part. What is an acceptable limit of nickel plating (thickness) as an undercoat to silver? The reason I am looking into nickel plating an undercoat is that the finished coating thickness requirements exceed the silver plating limitations. I need to apply 0.007 inch thickness to the base metal to achieve the design requirements. Nickel seemed the logical choice to get me to the required dimensions before silver plating since I am going to have to nickel/copper strike the part anyway. Any ideas.

C. Clifton
plating shop - Oxford, Alabama
2004

I take it you are using a cyanide silver solution with the nickel understrike. I cannot answer your question on thickness of nickel. But we apply several thousandths of non-cyanide copper on steel, machine smooth if necessary, then non-cyanide silver flash as if copper were the base metal.

Mary Cera
- Oklahoma City, OK
2004

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Silver can be plated to a lot thicker than your requirement with an engineering silver formulation. They have used extremely heavy silver plate for bearing purposes in the past. Seems to me we used 0.015" on a part for a seal.

James Watts
- Navarre, Florida
2004

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I have several rings that I want to heavy silver plated. The rings have a light coating of silver and does rub off after a while. What do I have to do to apply a heavy coating that would not rub off? What sort of machine I should buy to remove the blacking after the plating?

Thanks,

Roger Leon
- Port Wash., New York
2006

Ed. note: We now have an FAQ on silver plating at home that you will find informative, Roger