51013

How to tell gold anodize from gold chromate?  

January 20, 2009

How to distinguish gold anodized and gold chromate? And how to confirm the finish is gold chromate?
our supplier make double finish but hard to confirm by visual.

Jin Hang
buyer - Dongguan,Guang Zhou province, China

Hi, Jin. A simple V-O-M should do it. The anodized finish will be extremely resistive and the chromated finish will be significantly conductive. Once your inspector has a good feel for it, s/he will probably be able to do it visually with reliability.

Regards,

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

Also see Letter 36690 on his site
Can Diphenyl Carbazide method be used to test chromate conversion coatings on alu?

Leo Herringon
- Grand Rapids, MI, USA

Usually anodised gold colour is more even and non-conductive and chromate coated gold colour has a bit rainbow colour and not that beaufiful.Chromate conversion coating gold colour is more conductive.

lee leong tee
plating company - malacca, malaysia