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Peeling nickel plating on MS and nickel component

We have plating on MS material which has a nickel wire welded to it. We need to carry out nickel plating on it.
We degrease the part in alkaline cleaners, pickle it in HCl & ferric chloride ⇦ this on eBay or Amazon [affil links] , Derust it again in alkaline cleaners & finally activate it in HCl & load it in nickel plating tanks.
We have observed peeling off on the MS material & on the nickel wire when bent.

Please let me know if increase in time in activation tank can result in peeling off on the nickel wire? We suspect that over cleaning may be a reason.
Further, we have a slit-type (2 mm x 50 mm dimension) plating barrel and a holes-type barrel (2.5 mm dia), We have observed that the peeling is more in holes barrel that in slit barrel.

Halubai Pavithra
plating shop employee - India
November 18, 2009

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I'm sorry for the wrong information provided, We have observed that the peeling off is more in slit barrels than in holes barrel.
Kindly let me know if the design of the barrels has any role to play in peeling off & what would suit our process

Pavithra Halubai
- India
December 1, 2009

You have a very aggressive preplate operation. Also, you leave out any indication of a nickel strike. Nickel seldom will properly stick to stainless/nickel without a strike. Normally I would recommend a Woods nickel strike, but you might want to try a sulfamate strike in you lab as it might be satisfactory.

James Watts
- Navarre, Florida
December 1, 2009

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December 7, 2009

We do not have a strike bath before nickel plating & we prefer not to have one as this will increase to our product cost.
The nickel wire welded to the part is vert small. The surface area of the part is ranging from 2o to 50 sq cm.
where as the nickel wire area is about 0.5 sq cm.
Can you suggest any changes in our pre-cleaning process that will suit both MS & this NiCr alloy.

Pavithra Halubai
- India