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How do I measure nikasil plating thickness

I need to 'non-destructively' establish the plating thickness of nikasil coated cylinder bores, where it is believed they may be uneven after final honing.

Lee Spencer
motor sport - Northampton, Northants, England
2005

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Many people would do this with a preplate dimension and subtract the post hone dimension and divide by two. Because of a variable amount of carbide in the plate, it will make electronic measurement less than perfect. Assuming that you are on aluminum, and nickel being slightly magnetic, magnetic measurement will be impossible. Contact a couple of vendors of plating measurement equipment and see what they recommend. I do not remember if eddy current or beta backscatter will work.

True honing removes so little material that it does not seem logical that it would cause an unevenness. Seems to me that your concern should be with uniformness of the final ID and not thickness of the plate.

James Watts
- Navarre, Florida
2005

Check a company named Electro-physik and others too. They make instruments for that.

Guillermo Marrufo
Monterrey, NL, Mexico
2005

1-2 microns, if it measure different top to middle to bottom then be sure your Nikasil is more than polished LOL

David Petersen
- Newmarket, Brisbane, Australia
2006