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Reducing pitting and blisters in silver plated components

Our suppliers are plating aluminium alloys with cyanide silver plating processes. They are also using brighteners. Lately we are finding that the no. of defectives for pittings and bubbles have increased significantly. We are trying to investigate it.

Please guide us as how we should approach the problem of pittings and blisters in silver plating. will SEM help ?

Kaustav Saikia
Quality Engineer - Chennai, TN, India
February 26, 2010

March 2, 2010

Kaustav,

You need to ask your supplier exactly what his process is. Get him to tell you what his pre-plate cleaning steps are, what zincate he is using, what strike and plating solutions he is using. Ask what controls he has in place to ensure all his processes are working correctly, ask if he does a water-break test to ensure parts are clean prior to the zincate and plating operations.

I don't believe that SEM analysis will tell you anything at this stage.

Brian Terry
Aerospace - Yeovil, Somerset, UK

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