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-----Black Nickel Plating -- Formulas, Analysis, & Effects
Quickstart:
Nickel plating is ordinarily a bright metallic color similar to silver or chrome. For aesthetic reasons people may wish to blacken it. One way to do so if via post-treatments patinas or reactions; another way is to 'poison' the plating bath in a way that will cause the nickel metal to deposit already blackened. Both approaches are discussed on this page.
Disambiguation --
• For the black nickel specifically on early air rifles please see Thread 15267
• For info on applications of black nickel and issues with it, please see Thread 7077
• This thread is about formulas for black nickel plating, analysis, and tweaking of properties, and how to post-blacken it.
Q. Can this be used for electroless nickel deposits also?
How long can I use this bath. What is the surface area blackened per litre of the solution?
Shivam Bhatia
- India
January 2, 2025
A. Hi Shivam
Nitric acid will darken electroless nickel, but I'm not sure which of the many proposed solutions on this page you're referring to. For the best answers please introduce the full situation.
Do you want it to deposit black or do you want to post-blacken components you've already plated?
Everything always "depends": in line or old parts? ... already treated with a chromate? ... heat treated? ... low, mid or high phos? ... black because you'd like them black or because they were spec'd as black and it wasn't done? Thanks!
You might prefer to search the site for several threads about black electroless nickel plating.
Luck & Regards,
Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
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A. Dear Sir,
Mr Ted is absolutely right.
To what degree do you want black -- jet black, matte black or just you want to darken the deposition? But because I can feel what you want (not sure), add any selenium salt to Watts nickel or even Wood's nickel ⇦ huh? and you will have good black deposition without attacking the EN.
HOPE IT HELPED
BEST LUCK
- Riyadh Saudi Arabia
April 7, 2025
(this entry appended to this thread by editor in lieu of spawning a duplicative thread)
Q. What is another replacement for black nickel salt if it's not available in the Philippines?
employee - QUEZON CITY
December 9, 2025
A. Hi Cornell,
Nickel can be blackened via dipping in nitric acid or the application of patina, as discussed on this page. But generous readers have offered their formulas for depositing black nickel. Read on, and get back to us if the answers are insufficient.
Luck & Regards,
Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
Need quick confidential answers? $25
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⇩ Similar, related, Q&As -- oldest first ⇩
How to Blacken Nickel Electroforms
Q. We electroform pure nickel in polymer molds. I am looking for a Ni surface treatment that can be used to significantly "blacken" the nickel surface. We can not use plated Ni Black as we have other metals in our system (Cu in particular) that we do not wish to deposit on. Does anyone know of a chemical or electrochemical surface treatment that can blacken the Ni by a conversion process?
Thanks in advance for your advice.
- Monrovia, California, USA
2004
A. Dip in 50% nitric acid
Jeffrey Holmes, CEF
Spartanburg, South Carolina
A. Black patina for nickel:
0,5 gm potassium sulfocyanide
5 ccm sulfuric acid
25 ccm sodium peroxide
Cold immersion (15° C, 15 minutes). Use only fresh solution!
- Zagreb,Croatia
A. Try 0.5 g/l potassium thiocyanate ⇦ on eBay or Amazon [affil link] with 25 ml/l of 10% sulfuric acid and 25 ml/l of 20 Vol hydrogen peroxide. Use at room temp for 2-6 minutes.
Trevor Crichton
R&D practical scientist
Chesham, Bucks, UK
I'd like to thank both the administrator of this web site and the kind responders for their suggestions.
- Monrovia, California, USA
Ed. note: You are very welcome, Raffi! As has been said, "the best way to learn is to try to teach". For this to work, the responders like to learn if their suggestions helped. So a generous way to thank them would be to remember to let us know how things work out after you've tried it.
A. Black for nickel:
0,5 gm potassium thiocyanate
5 ccm sulfuric acid
25 ccm hydrogen peroxide Cold immersion (15 °C, 15 minutes) Use only fresh solution! Good luck!
- Cerovski vrh Croatia
Q. We need to blacken nickel electroforms. We tried your advice but we couldn't. Also, we tried blackening with a liquid antique chemical called black 508.
We did electropolishing on the part before the process and then activated with sulfuric acid. (Nickel electroform blackened in 30 seconds.) However, black oxide layer didn't adhere to nickel surface. What can we do about it?
Thanks for your advices.
- Ankara, Turkey
January 24, 2019
A. Immersion in 25% nitric acid will blacken the nickel, although it may not be jet black. There are commercially available processes which will blacken the nickel.
Jeffrey Holmes, CEF
Spartanburg, South Carolina
Sourcing of blackening chemicals
Q. Can anyone recommend a source for these chemicals in small, affordable quantities? I have a small project on which I need to darken some nickel-plated hardware, and found this thread on Google.
Thanks for any help.
- Gaston, South Carolina
April 29, 2011
A. Hi, Courtney.
If you are doing professional plating, the best source for chemicals is the plating process suppliers who offer everything you need.
For students, hobbyists, and artists Fisher Scientific, VWR, and Aldrich Chemical are three lab supply companies accustomed to selling chemicals in very small quantities. Please let us know if it works out.
Regards,
Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
Need quick confidential answers? $25
Need project assistance? $100/hr.
Formula for Black Nickel Barrel Plating
Q. Hi
Can anyone guide me what is the composition of black nickel if we want to do it in barrel?
Thanks
- Lahore Pakistan
November 13, 2020
A. Black nickel for barrel plating :
56 gms nickel ammonium sulphate ⇦ on
Amazon [affil link]
8 gms zinc sulphate
⇦ on
eBay
or
Amazon [affil link]
8 gms sodium thiocyanate ⇦ on
Amazon [affil link]
1 lit water
According to Fishlock,D. Metal Colouring, Teddington 1961, p.122
Hope it helps and good luck!
- Zagreb Croatia
Multiple threads merged: please forgive chronology errors and repetition 🙂
Q. I would like to know a method to analyze zinc sulphate in black nickel plating bath. I'm a chemist from Argentina and I have developed a black nickel bath. I heard about a method with 2,3 dimercapto propanol, but I don't know it, and in my country I couldn't find this compound.
Thanks for the attention.
- LA MATANZA, BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA
2003
by Langford & Parker
on Amazon
or AbeBooks
(affil link)
by Terrance H Irvine
on Amazon or eBay
or AbeBooks
(affil link)
A. Well, as nobody answered my question I had to develop my own method, which is as follows:
Like every method, it may change by the zinc concentration.
For a common concentration (20 g/l, for example), pipet 10 ml of the bath into a 250 or 500 ml Erlenmeyer flask.
Add 100 ml of deionized water, 30 ml of ph 10 regulator solution (that with ammonium and ammonium chloride) and only after that add 30 ml of 30% sodium cyanide solution;
Add 10 ml of formol and eriochrome black t
⇦ on
eBay or
Amazon [affil link]
solid indicator (that with sodium chloride) in proper quantity to see the endpoint clearly.
Stir and titrate with 0,1N E.D.T.A. solution to a blue endpoint (ml x 6,54 x solution correction factor):10=Zn g/l
I expect it may be useful to somebody.
- LA MATANZA, BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA
Thanks, Mauro!
Luck & Regards,
Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
Need quick confidential answers? $25
Need project assistance? $100/hr.
A. I think the "method with 2,3 dimercapto propano" kept anyone from answering.
Congratulations on a corrected version of the analytical procedure in the Metal Finishing Guidebook. The latter omits the NaCN, which complexes Ni to eliminate it from the titration for Zn. You could, however, reduce the NaCN quantity by a factor of 5 for a typical 75 g/L nickel sulphate solution.
The Canning Handbook ⇨
uses 1 g KCN for a 5 ml sample (in a somewhat laborious EDTA back-titration procedure).
- Goleta, California
Finishing.com honored Ken for his countless carefully researched responses. He passed away May 14, 2015.Rest in peace, Ken. Thank you for your hard work which the finishing world, and we at finishing.com, continue to benefit from.
Q. Hello,
I'm a chemist from Switzerland and I am looking for the composition of a black nickel bath.
Thanks for your attention,
- Switzerland
2004
Ed. note: Tom Pullizzi offers two early formulas on thread 0982
Goran Budija has uploaded a file on metal coloring methods to our on-line library, which includes a page on blackening nickel.
A. Hello Eva Garcia, here you have a formula which I "improved". I tested this and the bath gave a really black color on zamac pieces, and if you vary the volts you can regulate the hardness; but I still couldn't find (limited by time reasons) the maintenance methodology; I know the analysis methods but it is not enough. If this is useful for you and you achieve some new data about, it will be fun to receive that.
Formula:
ammonium sulphate
⇦ on
eBay or
Amazon [affil link]
20 g/l (grams per liter)
nickel sulphate 120,2 g/l
zinc sulphate 45 g/l
sodium sulphocyanide 18 g/l
pH: I tested with 3 and with 7
I recommend 52-55 °C, and cathodic movement.
I used in my test 2,8 volts.
- LA MATANZA, BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA
Multiple threads merged: please forgive chronology errors and repetition 🙂
Q. Firstly,
I send special thanks for all of you. I am asking about the best composition of black nickel bath to plating zinc metal.
chemist - Alex, Montaza, Egypt
2004
A. Dear Ashraf,
Two things I want to tell you
1- nobody will give you his own modern formula and simply it's the best to get the salts from specialized company; it will have Q.C and its R&D so you will get advanced bath.
2- to plate black nickel on zinc you have to plate copper-nickel as undercoat so there is no formula for black nickel specialized for zinc.
Best regards,
- Cairo, Egypt
A. Black nickel solution:
nickel sulfate
⇦ on
eBay or
Amazon [affil link]
...75 gm
Nickel ammonium sulphate
[affil link] ... 45 gm
zinc sulphate......37,5 gm
sodium thiocyanate....15 gm
water..............1 lit
pH 5,6-5,9
temp.55 C
o,5-1,5 V
up to 2,5 A/dm2, nickel anodes
for zinc, brass, copper, iron must be zinc plated
- Cerovski vrh Croatia
Reverse engineering a black nickel finish
Q. I am trying to do some reverse engineering on a product with a shiny black finish, which we like for the look and performance. Lab analysis showed that the product has a nickel plating with a thin surface film containing zinc and sulfur. I have heard of black nickel, but don't find much detail about the process or structure in the handbooks that I have available or on line.
My question: Does the typical "black nickel" plating process produce this zinc/sulfur surface film or is this a separate process? Any other tidbits about black nickel would also be appreciated. FYI: this product has an aluminum alloy substrate and also has an acrylic coating for improved corrosion protection.
Thanks.
Larry Hanke
Minneapolis, Minnesota
2007
A. Electrified zinc sulphate solutions are typical for applying black "nickel". Typically, a nickel underplate is applied, after which the part is immersed in a zinc sulphate solution at very low power for a short duration. Too much time or power and the black wipes off. While the coating has been labeled as black nickel for decades, this is a particularly bad misnomer - over any nickel except bright nickel it's typically grey or charcoal in color and as you've already summarized, it's not even nickel! The mil spec for black nickel which hasn't been revised or updated since the 50's has one formulation for black nickel solution.
Milt Stevenson, Jr.
Plating shop technical manager - Syracuse, New York
A. Mr. Larry Hanke,
You will get details of black Nickel plating from The Canning Handbook [on
eBay,
Amazon,
AbeBooks affil links] pages 403-405.
Vishwas Nangare
motorcycle accessories mfgr.
- Aurangabad, Maharashtra, India
A. For Larry and Milt,
There is a black nickel bath. It is applied over nickel plate. It is soft and thin, so if you scratch it you will see a very shiny line. It is difficult to control the amperage to get a soft black or a very dark gray plate. It is a nickel bath that is poisoned with zinc and a thio compound.
It is a pain to control and to run, but you can get some nice looking matte parts.
We did the prototype flash suppressor for the 40 mm gun that sticks out of the back left side of the C-130 gunship. Small tank, one at a time. I tried to convince them to use a matte black high temp stoving enamel.
- Navarre, Florida
A. Try to find old Fishlock's handbook on metal colouring (D.Fishlock Metal Colouring,Teddington 1962). Black nickel formula according to Fishlock:
nickel sulphate....75 gm
nickel ammonium sulphate [affil link to product info on Amazon]...45 gm
zinc sulphate......37,5 gm
sodium thiocyanate..15 g.
water ..........1 lit
pH 5,6-5,9
55 °C temp.,5-20 A/dm2, 0,5-1,5 v
nickel and carbon anodes, periodic correction of zinc salt.
Some online info you can find at www.thelitterbox.org ⇩ website (7 old techo-chemical recipe handbooks). Hope it helps and good luck!
- Cerovski vrh Croatia
Ed. note Dec 2013: www.thelitterbox.org ⇩ now redirects to www.librum.us ⇩
Ed. update Dec. 2025: Don't go to either of those sites; they have been sold to gambling sites in Vietnamese & Indonesian.
Q. Evening all!
I came across another one that I want to try out, and figured I'd solicit feedback.
I found a fairly simple black nickel bath while poking about on the internet.
"Black nickel electrodeposition from a modified Watts bath"
NiCl2 0.09 mol
H3BO3 0.30 mol
KNO3 0.20 mol
Anyone have any experience working with a bath like this? ⇦ Answer?
Marc BanksBlacksmith - Boone, North carolina, USA
April 3, 2013
⇦ Tip: Readers like to learn from others' situations;
some readers skip abstract questions.
Q. I would like to know how long should a Black Nickel Bath last.
Thank you. ⇦ Answer?
- Greenbelt, Maryland
May 22, 2012
Measuring the Hardness of the Black Nickel Plating
Q. I am interested to understand the hardness of Black nickel plating.
Is it dependent on substrate hardness, i.e SUS301 extra hard?
finishing for electronics application - Penang, Malaysia
2006
A. Hardness of black nickel deposit is around 550 Vickers and depend on alloy %(such as nickel-zinc alloy). If deposit thickness too thin (less than 5 microns) then hardness reading will be influenced by base metal by using indenter to measure.
David Shiu
- Singapore
A. Although indenters and loads used for plating measurement are very small compared to regular indenters, I differ from the thickness mention. The minimum necessary thickness to isolate the hardness reading of the plating from the hardness of the substrate depends on the instrument and, when tested perpendicularly, has been found to be at least four or five times the depth of the indentation left and even more. If a sample can be cut and indented across, then the minimum is reduced to three times the width of the indentation. These are not fixed values.
Guillermo MarrufoMonterrey, NL, Mexico
A. We have produced some black nickel plate parts before which may useful for you.
Normally we'll have clear lacquer above the black nickel plate; without the lacquer, maybe only 24 hour NSS will cause corrosion. According to salt spray test standard, if the lacquer corrodes the test will fail.
Therefore, you should focus on the lacquer painting supplier now (usually the plating supplier will provide lacquer paint); normally we can pass 72 or 96 hour NSS at max., but their performance is not steady enough, and that's why we didn't get involved in some black nickel plating parts.
Dingxin (ningbo) Metal alloy Co., Ltd. - Ningbo, China
May 26, 2012
Why is my Black Nickel Plating too hard?
December 16, 2013Q. Normally I mix Black Nickel bath by myself, I use it industrially for watches.
And I face the problem that after plating black nickel, then I use CNC diamond cutting on the black nickel layer and the black nickel cracks and breaks.
Why is my black nickel too hard? How can I make a bath for softer black nickel plating, or what are the needed operating conditions to make a softer layer?
Bath recipe:
1. Nickel sulphate 100 g/L
2. Zinc sulphate 50 g/L
3. Zinc chloride 5 g/L
4.Ammonium thiocyanate
⇦ on
eBay
or
Amazon [affil link]
50 g/L
Bath operating conditions:
pH 5.75 baumé 13
Current density 0.165 A/dm2 ⇦ Answer?
- Bangkok, Thailand
⇦ Tip: Readers like to learn from others' situations;
some readers skip abstract questions.
Q. Black nickel barrel process without use of thio cyanide? / cyanide-free formula?
I tried but did not get good result.
Allied electroplating chemicals - Karachi, Pakistan
January 18, 2015
What was it that you tried, and what was the result please, cousin?
Regards,
Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
Need quick confidential answers? $25
Need project assistance? $100/hr.
Q. Hi,
I want to prepare black nickel bath in our factory.
Please can you help me about composition, conditions ... any information to help me?
It can be used above a nickel deposit ⇦ Answer?
Chemical Engineer - Alexandria, egypt
May 4, 2017
Black Nickel plated part is grey instead of black
Q. Hi,
I would like to state that I'm a complete beginner in electroplating so I apologize in advance if some of my questions are silly, but I can't find any information online so I'm hoping that maybe someone can help me here.
I have a small electroplating machine (bought from eBay) which has a solution tank size of roughly 70 ml. It has a variable voltage controller but the current can not be set separately. I thought it's important to mention because the minimum voltage setting on this machine is 1.30 v. I'm trying to black nickel plate a watch dial made from brass. The dial measure 38 mm in diameter and it is 0.8 mm thick. I've purchased the necessary ingredients for the black nickel solution from a company in the UK but I mixed the solution myself. I followed the instruction carefully and I believe that the solution is okay as far as pH considered. I also follow the instructions regarding the plating process, but every time the part turns grey instead of black. I've played around with the voltage (between 1.30 v - 2.0 v), temperature was always between 20-30 degree, time in solution (15 seconds to 1 minute), etc., but I haven't been able to produce a black finish.
I contacted the company from whom I bought the solution, they suggested that I try to plate the black nickel onto either freshly plated zinc or zinc/nickel. So I've purchased a zinc/nickel solution, I plate the part with that first than with the black nickel, but still the part turns out gray not black.
Could it be that I need to use less that 1.30 v for the plating because of the small size of the part? Could it be that the tank is small and that the anode and the part are too close to each other? Do I need some kind of pre-treatment for the brass other than cleaning and a 10-20 second dip into Hydrochloric Acid 15%? Do I need some kind of treatment after the plating to get a black finish?
If anyone could point me to the right direction on what I should do differently I would greatly appreciate it.
Thank you.
Hobbyist - Chemnitz, Germany
September 20, 2017
A. Hi David. We appended your inquiry to a long thread on the subject, which may be of some help. Some professionals tell us on this page that gray rather than black is what you should unfortunately expect. For a true black on watch dials you may need precious metal plating like black ruthenium or black rhodium ⇨
rather than black nickel.
Regards,
Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
Need quick confidential answers? $25
Need project assistance? $100/hr.
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