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Gold Plating a handle in a coffee spoon

2006

Dear Friends,
I want to gold plate SUS 304 stainless parts, kitchen utensils.
1) What is the procedure I have to follow to correctly describe this on a 2D drawing?
a) Surface preparation
b) Pre-plating Chrome? What is the recommended thickness of pre-plating?
c) Gold plating; what is the recommended thickness of the gold plating?
d) 24K gold or 18K...?
e) It must meet RoHS and FDA requirements.

Thank you,

Francesco Carnevale
Kitchen utensils - Shenzhen, China

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Hello, Francesco. Without knowing your degree of understanding of electroplating, it is difficult to advise you on how to write a plating specification. I don't think there would be any chrome plating on such an item, but you should determine whether or not to include nickel plating (I think you probably should). I think you need to build and test prototypes, rather than produce parts to an untested specification, but I would probably do the prototypes with Wood's nickel, followed by a proprietary bright nickel, followed by a proprietary hard acid gold plating. Call a supplier or plating shop and have them work with you to design, build, and test these sample parts. Good luck.

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