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Letter 1007
Cracks in brush plated copper
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I got a couple of responses about copper brush plating kits and
thought I should get some more info. We have a couple of copper jobs
(OFHC copper), which have developed cracks in their electron beam
welds. The cracks are about 1 millimeter wide, 1 mm deep and 2-3 mm
long. These need to be filled with copper. That implies plating
copper on copper. NOT for strenghtening purposes. The finish has to
be almost mirror finish. In a couple of jobs the cracks are deeper
3-4 mm deep - can brush plating fill deeper cracks? In some cases the
cracks are a bit inaccessible - at the end of a 600mmlong, 200mm dia
cylinder. Any opinions/views and ofcourse quotes (with details) of
brush plating kits are welcome.
Dr. Nitin Thakur
Australian National University
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From the information you have given, I can say that you
can brush plate these cracks.With a one to one aspect ratio
of the cracks, it makes for a little more difficult repair.
First you need to open up the cracks with a small grinder. A
Dremel tool works fine. You need to do this because you
would be using a acid copper solution which does not have
very good throwing power. It would have a tendancy to bridge
over the crack top. After you dished out the crack(at least
ten to one)then you can plate. You need to mask off the
repair area by approx. 1/16 inch around the crack.After you
are finished plating, you must dress back to the origional
surface. Again yhou can use the Dremel with various
attachments to do this. As to a final polish,use the Dremel
with a polishing point to polish to the desired final
surface finish. There are more questions that need to be
answered before I can say what exactly you need to
accomplish this. As far as a kit goes, for your application
a simple kit would suffice.
Tom Sivula
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