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Peeeling of chrome plating on bathroom towel warmer

Hi I used to be a metallurgist and have forgotten most of it now. But need to ask why the chrome plating on our bathroom heated towel rail would peel off? It has peeled taking the copper and chrome layer off in leaving the nickel. So the peeling is between the base nickel and copper. It is three years old on a base steel tubular frame.

Yours sincerely,

MR JOZEF GIERASIK
PAST METALLURGIST - DUNDEE, SCOTLAND
2006

When plating peels it is almost always a defect in the plating rather than environmental conditions. The plating should not have peeled. The copper goes beneath the nickel rather than on top of it; that is, the sequence is copper-nickel-chrome. So if you are truly seeing nickel beneath the copper, it is probably a layer of electroless nickel beneath the copper-nickel-chrome plating, and the electroless nickel surface was probably too passive for the copper to adhere to.

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
2006

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