Metal finishing Q&As since 1989

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Cleaning Ceramic Part

Now we doing sample from our customer for electroless nickel plating. This part is made from combination of ceramic (with printing code on it) and steel. Our plating result is OK (on steel side), but ceramic side still look dirty for our customer. They want ceramic side become pure white without eliminate the printing code. Could you help me?

Joko Prasetyo Yuniartanto
Plating shop employee - Bekasi, West Java, Indonesia
May 26, 2009

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May 25, 2009

Hi, Joko. Please spend a couple of more paragraphs describing your process. While it may be clear in your mind, it is not at all clear in mine. Would this be a component something like a spark plug where you are trying to electroless nickel plate the steel portion without discoloring the ceramic? You probably need to mask the ceramic portions with the printing while you are doing the electroless nickel plating, because it sounds like the plating process is leaching the ink out of the printing.

Regards,

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

Sorry Ted, Part name is arrester (cylindric ceramic plugged by steel). Before process ceramic color is broken white, but after plating the colour should be pure white. We already try to use warm mix acid, for color is OK but printing code etched. Our process now are : 1. Degreasing (cold type, 2 step - total time 15 min) 2. Anodic Clean (1 Amp/dm2 - 3 min) 3. HCl Pickling (6 min) 4. Dry Acid Salt Activation (60 sec).

Joko P. Yuniartanto
- Bekasi, West Java, Indonesia
May 27, 2009