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Rough deposit in vertical plating of aluminium alloy wheels [India] 

November 15, 2007

I am working in chennai based private firm for the past 11 years looking after electro plating plant of steel rims. Recently we have started to plated aluminium alloy wheel plating. Wheile doing vertical plating of aluminium wheel, we observe rough deposit at the bottom of the wheel. Till now we are plating steel rim horizontally. Can you pl explain how I can avoid this rough deposit while plating aluminium alloy wheels.

S G SUNDARRAJAN
PLATING SHOP SUPERVISOR - CHENNAI, TAMILNADU, INDIA

There are a number of steps in plating an aluminum wheel, S G, including zincating, cyanide copper or electroless nickel, nickel plating, chrome plating, and maybe more. I think the first step is to figure out which plating step is introducing this roughness. Lacking that, my only guess is that the tank is not sufficiently agitated so it is cool at the bottom and the plating is burning in that area. Good luck.

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