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PEEL OFF IN CHROME PLATING [India] 

November 20, 2007

We are facing peel off problem & crack mark problem in our plastic part (material - ABS) which was chrome plated. May we know what is the reason behind that?

V.Veerasubramany
- Chennai, Tamilnadu & India

Thank you for visiting finishing.com, Veerasubramany, but chrome plating of plastic is a complicated process and we'd need a lot more information before we could even begin to try to help. Your question is not a lot different from saying you attempted brain surgery and are asking why the patient died :-)

Is the chrome peeling, or the nickel, or the copper, or the electroless nickel? Likewise what is cracking? What preplate cycle are you running? Have these parts been successfully plated in the past? Is the problem on every part or on one part in ten thousand? Thanks!

Ted Mooney, P.E.  finishing.com Brick, NJ

Sorry, Forgive me. Now our problem is, we have a plastic part (ABS material) which was chrome plated. The plating procedure is first copper, then nickel & then finally chromium. Now we are facing some issues like peel off, crack mark (some line marks was observed) and bubbles in the surface area of the part.

May we know what the reason behind that is? Waiting for your reply. Thanks in advance.

V.Veerasubramany
- Chennai, Tamilnadu & India

If all of the layers are peeling off, it sounds like your etching process is not working properly and the plating is not getting a good tooth or key on the plastic. This needs to be solved before looking at the cracking. Good luck.

Ted Mooney, P.E. 
finishing.com
Brick, NJ