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NICKEL PLATING LOW CARBON STEEL WITH STAINLESS STEEL HARDWARE

Help,

I have a customer requirement that calls for a low carbon steel enclosure with stainless steel and zinc plated carbon steel press-in hardware to be installed prior to finishing. The finish callout is for bright nickel plating. I have been told by a plater that the carbon steel hardware is okay, but the nickel will probably peel or flake off of the stainless steel. Is this true? Can anybody offer some insight?

Thanks,

Noel Olson
- North Salt Lake, Utah, USA
 

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To be properly adherent, plating must be a true metallurgical bond--the plating must grow onto the substrate. Stainless steel is, of course, highly passive--meaning an oxide film tends to form on it almost immediately, making the bond improper.

So your plater is right that if he uses the standard pretreatment sequence for steel parts, the nickel will not adhere to this passive stainless steel. But special pretreatment processes, the best known being the Wood's Nickel Strike, make it possible to reliably plate onto stainless steel. It's a matter of cost, not feasibility.

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
 

Perhaps you need copper strike for stainless steel parts before Nickel plating.

Payal Mag
- Charlotte, North Carolina