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-----Pit left on the electropolished surface
Houston, we have a problem. We did electropolishing on 316L Vim/var material (after hand-polish). We even used diamond paste to do manual pre-polishing. After EP, we found pits on the surface. We get darker finish some time. We can change the duration of EP (20 seconds only). Could you give us some clues? The polished surface gets even worse after "diamond" paste - polishing.
Liu Song YunCompart manufacturing company - GuangDong, China
2006
It is very common in electropolishing that the parts will pit or etch if it is not done quite correctly. The parts must be properly clean, there must not be excess water in the solution, and the current density must be high enough to get out of the "etching range" and into the "polishing range", as three quick examples of things that cause problems.
The best readily available book on electropolishing is the
Electroplating Engineering Handbook ⇦ this on
eBay,
AbeBooks, or
Amazon [affil link]
, but you could try to contact AESF (www.nasf.org) about whether they have any copies left of their "Illustrated Lecture on Electropolishing".
Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
Need quick confidential answers? $25
Need project assistance? $100/hr.
2006
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