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Hard Chrome Plating Problem "Surface Looks Like Diamond File Texture"

We recently hard chrome plated a ring that came out of the tank with a very rough surface. The best way to describe the surface is it looked like thousands of micro balls deposited on the surface. When we ground the ring, the surface remained flat and we could not grind it to a polished surface.

Any Ideas?

James Gillis
Shop Employee - Canada
2007

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Two.
1. Your machining had smeared burrs that were raised in the etch process and caused the nodules.
2. The chrome tank had trash floating around in it, but this would be far heavier on the top surface than on the bottom surface, as it was plated.

While not too likely, the plater might have grit blasted the part with too large a grit. Also, they might have impregnated carbide particles in a blast process. Aluminum oxide media will dissolve in the caustic cleaning step. He might have used steel shot or cut wire and had not properly maintained the quality of the media.

James Watts
- Navarre, Florida
2007

Ur job must be having magnetising effect. First you do demagnetise your job as pass it through demagnetiser & then start plating on it. I'm sure that you would get satisfactory results.

Kuldeep Singh
Endurance tech. - Pantnagr , Uttrakhand (INDIA)
2007