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Need Info on Electroless Nickel Plating

2003

My company is looking into the possibility of expanding into E/N plating. In ya'lls opinion, what is the best "how to" book out there that I can purchase?

Thanks for your advice.

Marc Green
anodizer - Boise, Idaho

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You may start with the ASM Metals Handbook. Then, the Metal Finishing Guidebook, then Safranek's Properties of Electrodeposited Metals and Alloys [affil link to Amazon or on AbeBooks] , etc. Finally, if you already are in the business of plating, ask your chemicals supplier if he sells it or go to another one. If you're not, I strongly recommend to hire a professional.

Guillermo Marrufo
Monterrey, NL, Mexico
2003

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2003

Hi Marc,

From the resounding response that your letter got, you might surmise that there is no good hands on EN book. In my opinion, the technical end would be the "Electroless Plating" book by Mallory and Hajdu [on eBay , Amazon, or AbeBooks] . These are probably the most respected names in the business at the time of the book.

Note, there are several chapters by other authors. Palm in Nashville used to offer a school. They may still offer it. If not, you might be able to get old text books. At least one person was a founder of Elnic. I used their high P bath for braze application because it had one of the most stable P percentages going.

Note that all high P baths are more picky than mid phos baths. Enthone Tech services had one of the most complete group of literature that I found. You had to know some one to get access to a lot of it. They evidently did not want to be in the literature business. Enthone has been sold several times since I used their products.

At one time, they had one of the toughest, hard to kill solutions with a good brightness of any on the market. There are two companies in the northeast that have people from the old company that have put out affordable tough solutions. There are a lot of techniques that virtually no one talks about that make the difference between a viable EN business and an also ran one. Buying tanks and equipment from solution vendors was unaffordable in my time. Finding high quality independent manufacturers is tough, but virtually a necessity to be competitively priced.

You can contact me and we can chat about some of the techniques that helped me a lot. Where is the picture of the dog? Jim

James Watts
- Navarre, Florida

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Thanks James...I think I'm gonna need to get a little more info from our sales staff as to exactly what type of Nickel plating they want me to look into, as it seems there are several types available, each with different properties. Once it gets to that point, I'll be looking you up, if you don't mind. As far as the dog goes.. ya gotta ask Ted (or whoever posts these questions/replies) as I definitely still have a picture on file.

Marc Green with Rusty
anodizer - Boise, Idaho
2003

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Ed. note: Okay, okay, we added Rusty to Marc's posting :-)

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2003

I am surprised that no one mentioned Electroless Nickel Plating [affil link on Amazon] by Wolfgang Riedel. It is 300 pages and I have found it to be a very good reference. It is an ASM book published by finishing publications. Last time I checked you could get it from AESF bookstore.

Jon Barrows, MSF, EHSSC
GOAD Company

Independence, Missouri

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Ed. note: It's not in the AESF bookstore anymore, but it is available by following the link to Amazon.

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Hi Jon,

I looked at it once at Sur-Fin and decided to spend my money on some other reference books. I had fought most of the EN wars by that time tho. It could easily be a good one for Marc.

James Watts
- Navarre, Florida
2003