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Pits in copper plating

At work we chrome plate aluminium. First we nickel plate then copper plate and last we chrome plate. We use a cold electro plate process. Currently we have small pits in the copper plate. The smalls pits show up if we chrome plate. What causes the pits in the copper plate?

Thomas Rascop
- Huntington beach, California, USA
2003

Hi Thomas. I am not understanding very well what you do. I am not familiar with the term "cold electroplating process", and I'm pretty sure you have the order wrong on nickel and copper plating.

Aluminum is zincated as the first step in plating. Then it is either copper plated or electroless nickel plated. Then it may be copper plated again, but it certainly must be nickel plated immediately before chrome plating. We need to know what process you are using before anyone can hazard a guess about what went wrong with it. Thanks.

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
2003

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