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Bubbles in clear zinc plating

May 12, 2011

My plating shop is having problems with bubbling. My material is machined steel 1018/1020. He is plating my parts per ASTM B633 type III. My plater thought that it may be coming from one of the threaded holes and cleaned the part with alcohol prior to starting the dipping process but the problems continue to come back. Any ideas on what to do to solve the problem?

Thanks,

Curtis

Curtis Richardson
manufacturing - Murphys California USA

Hi, Curtis.

I think you are speaking of what most people would call "blistering". Does the defect look a lot like normal blisters that people get, with the outermost "skin" pulled away from the substrate?

Assuming that the material is actually the 1018/1020 that you are led to believe that it is, the most common cause of blistering would be inadequate cleaning. If the parts might get exposed to silicone, you'll never get them clean enough to plate, so investigate that first. After that, you plater probably needs to improve his cleaning cycle.

This is no reflection on you, just reality: even if you have a PhD and years of experience in plating, it is exceptionally difficult to be successful as a middleman delivering advice on improving a plating cycle :-)

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
May 12, 2011