Letter 34055

Nikasil plating questions  

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I am a small business owner that would be interested in possibly doing Nikasil plating for small engines. Can someone help me in finding out more, ie: what is involved, suppliers of the equipment, etc.
Any help would be appreciated, thanks in advance.

Ed Tetreault
hobbyist - Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Nikasil is a trademark of Mahle Corporation for nickel silicon carbide plating, but there are suppliers and shops offering nickel silicon carbide plating under different tradenames too. It is nickel plating with occlusions of silicon carbide incorporated into the plating by doing the plating out of a slurry of nickel plating solution and silicon carbide particles. If you are already familiar with nickel plating, the particles are what makes it different. If you're not familiar with nickel plating you need to learn that first.

Plating, like surgery, is more about knowledge and experience than about equipment, so you might want to join the American Electroplaters Society (www.nasf.org), take a plating course from them or Kushner Plating School, and/or read a couple of books from our "must have" list.

Please be aware that the plating industry is very job shop oriented. So there are shops like U.S. Chrome of Wisconsin who would be pleased to nickel silicon carbide plate your engine components for you personally or for your business if desired.

Ted Mooney, P.E.  finishing.com Brick, New Jersey

 

April 24, 2009

We are interested in setting a line for Nikasil plating (small cylinders) -- Is this proprietary? Any consultants or chemistry companies to recommend? Any info would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!!

Klint Schuster
sales - Oklahoma

Hi, Klint. We appended your inquiry to a previous similar inquiry that partially answers it. Nikasil is a trademark of Mahle, but other people offer nickel-silicon plating. U.S. Chrome of Wisconsin offers this service and may (or may not) be interested in consulting on how to do it. Good luck.

Regards,

Ted Mooney finishing.com Brick, New Jersey