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Nickel Strike Cell concentration Breakdown

How do you maintain the concentration of a Nickel Strike cell without it breaking down after about 8 hours? My company uses Zinc plating for corrosion, and presently employs Chromate for adhesion. We'd like to switch to a Nickel Strike, but have had problems with the Nickel Strike's concentration breaking down and having to make a new bath every 8
hours or so. Do you think a combination of Zinc/Nickel plating before the Strike cells would help this? Also, would the Carbon filters help as well? I'm not an engineer, nor will I profit from this whatsoever. Thank you for any help you may be able to give me!

Timothy E. Scott
Hisan, Inc. - Findlay, Ohio
2005

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2005

Not sure what that disavowal of profit was about, Timothy, and we certainly hope somebody will profit from your question, but anyway . . .

A nickel strike is often applied on high volume steel parts without extraordinary measures being needed to maintain solution balance, so I don't understand why you've found it necessary to remake the bath every 8 hours. Something sounds drastically wrong. Further, the purpose of your proposal of a strike (very thin plating) on top of a standard plating isn't immediately obvious to me. If I were you I think I would call in the supplier's tech service person responsible for your zinc plating process, or the tech service person from the supplier of your proposed zinc-nickel process and spend a couple of hours discussing pretreatment and the basics.

I get the general feeling that you may be misapplying the word "strike" in a way that is confusing our discussions of the matter. Please look up "Wood's Nickel" and see if we're on the same page. Good luck.

Regards,

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

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2005

It would sure help if you said why you only got 8 hours use.
First thought is drag in of great amounts of caustic cleaner.
Second is not enough anode, wrong anode or insoluble anode.

James Watts
- Navarre, Florida