Direct Silver Plating onto 304 Stainless Steel (or steel)

A. Ideally the stainless steel should be cleaned in a suitable alkaline cleaner, followed by a good cathodic cleaner. It is possible to plate straight on to stainless steel by using a silver strike (based on cyanide) but the preferred route is to use a copper cyanide strike, followed by silver. The essential thing is to get the metal oxides off the stainless steel and cyanides are quite good at that.

A. Direct silver plating bath for stainless steel:

20 gm. silver chloride
40 gm. potassium carbonate
40 gm. potassium ferrocyanide [affil links]
Stainless steel anodes, if you want to use silver anodes add 100 gm.sodium sulphite/ from one Russian book.

Hi Manish.

As you see, we appended your inquiry to a previous thread which may answer it for you. It is best to copper plate then silver strike first. A responder in letter 38532 also suggests this sequence. Good luck.

Regards,

A. Hi Sandip. As a silver plater you already recognize the several steps involved in silver plating, and you already recognize the various things that can go wrong or cause difficulties, such as poor adhesion, poor coloration, poor throwing power with heavy thicknesses in one area and low thicknesses in another, etc. What problems are you having and what are you trying to silver plate -- nichrome wire, strip, or individual items? Are you brush plating, rack plating, or barrel plating? Can you use a nickel strike? Are you using conventional cyanide silver? Do you do cyanide copper under it?

Nichrome is deliberately of high resistance, so it is possible that its resistance is causing you problems with your racking or barreling arrangements. It is difficult to activate, like stainless steel. It is also difficult to etch.

Please be specific about what you've tried and what specific difficulties you are encountering. Thanks!

Regards,