How to Do Brushed Nickel Plating

A. Hi Nesligul. Unfortunately, the term 'brushed' nickel doesn't have a fixed and universally accepted meaning, as you will read in other threads on this site. It can mean a brushed texture which is obtained by scratch brushing the steel before undertaking the nickel plating or more of a matte look achieve by glass beading before plating. It can also mean a more "satin" frosted finish which is actually obtained through the addition of proprietary addition agents in the nickel baths. Your plating chemical supplier will be familiar with their availability.

But "standards" of what the OEM and the plating shop mean will be essential for brushed nickel, or unhappy mismatches are assured. Good luck.

A. This topic has been discussed at some length before, David, on letter 32950 and others. To the best of my recollection, no one felt there was much hope of chemically etching the nickel, but there may be some possibility of lightly bead blasting it. Maybe you can clearcoat it with a satin lacquer? Good luck.

A. Hi Bob. I'm not familiar with brushing nickel after the plating, but there's probably no reason you can't apply semi-bright nickel plating to the existing nickel plating (after activation with a Wood's Nickel Strike). It just strikes me as both more conventional, and probably easier to reliably re-plate if you do the brushing first.

I'm a bit confused about why you stripped the bluish-white chrome plating layer if you find nickel plating too yellow for your taste though. Good luck.

Regards,