Sound technical content, curated with aloha by
Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Pine Beach, NJ
The authoritative public forum
for Metal Finishing since 1989
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Masking material / method for electroless nickel plating
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Q. We have an aluminium diecast part with a stainless steel 304 part assembled in it. While doing electroless nickel plating there is a small layer of deposition on the stainless steel part. Is there a way to mask this stainless steel part. We tried silicone masking which didn't work.
Looking for an alternate method of masking of Stainless steel.
Engineer - India
February 16, 2022
A. Hi Rajesh. Liquid maskants can work but you need a very good one because most electroless nickel processes are very hot and aggressive.
Luck & Regards,
Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
adv.
Rajesh, we help customers with electroless nickel plating all the time. We can supply a maskant for this process. If anyone is in need of a maskant for this or any other process, please give us a call at 888-218-7227 or email us at info@maskcoat.com.
Jeremy
www.maskcoat.com
Mask Coat LLC
West Monroe, Louisiana
Q. Dear sir,
We Have Electro Nickel Plating process on EN24T Material,
In that process we have taken trial as masking material as Teflon Material; the material was occur bend for 3rd and 4th Trial Process.
Is there another Masking Material? Please suggest.
- Hosur Tamil Nadu /India
July 25, 2022
A. Hi Mohan. Masking for electrolytic nickel, unlike for electroless nickel, should be pretty easy and unchallenging for the masking material.
Apologies but I do not understand what you are saying about the material bending ... but you are not trying to heat treat AFTER nickel plating are you?
Luck & Regards,
Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
A. adv.
Please email MASKCOAT for any questions info@maskcoat.com
We have customers who use our products for electroless nickel plating on a continuing basis. We can certainly help with this.
Mask Coat LLC
West Monroe, Louisiana
February 6, 2023
⇩ Related postings, oldest first ⇩
Q. I have several problems to mask areas that I don't want to plate. I would be very appreciative if someone can suggest me what kind of paint can I use to protect the areas not to be plated
Thanks very much
- Buenos Aires, Argentina
2000
Ed. note: Sorry, this RFQ is old & outdated, so contact info is no longer available. However, if you feel that something technical should be said in reply, please post it; no public commercial suggestions please ( huh? why?)
A. Hi Emmanuel
I don't call what you are looking for 'paint'; I'd call it a maskant for electroless nickel. You can use high-temperature "plater's tape", or teflon tape if the part is suitable, or elastomer plugs or caps, or a brush-on or spray-on plastisol-type masking aid. There are several manufacturers of specialized masking materials (hopefully our advertisers will respond to you in private).
Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
How Can I Spray Paint-Like Masking Onto Parts
I was wondering if anyone would be able to help me out here. I've been plating for three years and I was just asked to find out if there is a way I can spray a paint-like masking onto parts and how we would be able to do this. If anyone can help me with this it would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you very much.
Chris Demakiselectroless nickel plater - WAUCONDA, Illinois, US
2004
A. Hi Chris. Maskants are available from a number of suppliers Maskcoat LLC [a finishing.com supporting advertiser]. Maskants are usually applied as dip-able or brushable coatings as opposed to sprayable coatings (and as caps, plugs, & tapes). Electroless nickel is one of the more difficult plating solutions to mask against because of its high temperature, and unless you have a really good reason why spraying is very strongly preferable, I'd look to dipping or brushing (where plugs and caps can't be used).
Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
Masking threaded holes in an Aluminum part for EN Plating
Q. We are a manufacturer of Electrical connectors. We have a line of connectors that use an Electroless Nickel plate over Aluminum. We have several blind threaded holes in the Aluminum shell that we currently mask using nylon screws. After time the nylon wears and we need to replace them. My question is: Would Stainless steel screws be better for long term usage in masking these holes, or, would they cause problems with the plating process.
Thank you
Jeff Lesiczka- Hudson, New Hampshire, USA
2004
A. SS screws will eventually become active and begin to plate out (this could also happen to nylon and is solved by stripping in nitric acid in both cases). Their mechanical resistance make them an option worth trying. In my opinion there is nothing in the conventional previous prep steps that will interfere with good plating.
Guillermo MarrufoMonterrey, NL, Mexico
A. Jeff,
You can use rubber plugs, nylon screws must be changed after you have used them.
Regards
Anders Sundman
4th Generation Surface Engineering
Consultant - Arvika,
Sweden
Alternative for the Masking prior to Electroless Nickel Plating
1. Is there an alternative to Turco Lacquer for the masking of components prior to Electroless Nickel Plating?
2. Is there a degreasing agent that will remove Turco Lacquer (other than Trichloroethylene) that will conform to the Solvent Emissions Directive?
I will be very grateful for any answers or suggestions to above questions.
Best Regards,
- Titchfield, England
2006
A. Hi Przemyslaw. Sorry, we can't compare commercial products on these pages, or suggest one brand or source over another (why?), but Maskcoat LLC [a finishing.com supporting advertiser] may have a suggestion. Good luck.
Regards,
Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
Q. We are a gear manufacturing company and we sometimes have machining mistakes that we try to recover by electrolytic chromium, or increasingly by electroless nickel plating.
We have an electroless nickel supplier in our zone but they don't mask with wax the parts to plate, for instance, a wrong diameter hole. They plate only the whole part.
I have thought to mask the parts with polyester-epoxy painting which is acid resistant paint. But I don't know if the polyester-epoxy paint could damage the nickel sulphamate + hypophosphite sodium nickel chemical bath.
Does anyone mask a part with epoxy or polyester-epoxy against electroless nickel?
shop employee - Andoain, Gipuzkoa, Spain
March 6, 2020
A. Hola Señor Ibarra. We added your question to a thread on the subject. It is quite difficult to mask parts for electroless nickel plating -- both because of the high temperature and the aggressiveness of the chemicals.
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Personal sidenote: Polypropylene is so flammable that by far the leading cause of plating shop fires is electric heaters in polypropylene tanks. So for an exotic NASA installation I once designed a large plating shop with special fire-retardant polypropylene tanks throughout. It was a smashing success! ... except that the electroless nickel tank suffered boron relentlessly leaching into the plating solution and ruining it. So part of the "smashing success" was smashing up the fire-resistant electroless nickel tank and replacing it with a pure polypropylene one :-( |
The moral is that even very small amounts of chemicals leached out can ruin the chemical balance in an electroless nickel process. So, based on the personal experience I described, if it were my electroless nickel plating tank, I would not allow any masking material to enter it except those specifically designed for the purpose.
If you do not find sufficient info on this page about appropriate proprietary masking materials, please google for "masking for electroless nickel plating".
Buena suerte,
Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
Thank you Ted.
I will follow your advice.
- Andoain, Gipuuzkoa, Spain
A. There are a number of maskants specially designed for electroless nickel plating process. Contact your local maskant supplier and emphasize that you need a maskant for EN process.
Alex Sirota- Lod, Israel
adv.
Please email MASKCOAT for any questions info@maskcoat.com
We have customers who use our products for electroless nickel plating on a continuing basis. We can certainly help with this.
Mask Coat LLC
West Monroe, Louisiana
February 6, 2023
Tip: Readers often just skip abstract questions;
they want to learn from your actual situation.
Q. Sodium Hypophosphite alternate chemical?
imran khan- Karachi, Pakistan
October 5, 2021
A. Hi Imran. There are other reducing agents sometimes used in electroless nickel formulations, including sodium borohydride, dimethylamine borane (DMAB) and hydrazine ... but these are whole alternate processes with different deposit properties, not a simple substitution; and all are at least as difficult to get and work with :-(
English may not be your first language, and we apologize that it is the only language we can work with here. But please try translate.google.com and give us some background information to minimize misunderstandings because a 4-word sentence fragment isn't an answerable question.
Luck & Regards,
Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
finishing.com is possible thanks to our supporting advertisers, including:
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