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Tin plating, bubbling problems

January 29, 2019

Q. I am trying to plate tin.
My plating always has bubbles in them.
Im using a spin casting to cast my tin goods.
I used a grinder and a tumbler for cleaning
I even dipped it in a cleaning solution before plating
(As30)

Please help
What did I do wrong?

Kevin Prayogo
- semarang, Java, Indonesia

A. Hi Kevin. I'm not sure from the wording of your posting whether you are casting tin, or you are casting something else (perhaps zinc) and then tin plating it. In either case, tin plating is a reasonably complex multi-step process, and simply getting tin to deposit is only about 1% of the way towards success :-) If your plating always has bubbles, in other words you have never successfully achieved adhesion, there may not be one very simple and obvious thing wrong, but a number of things :-)

Please tell us what metal you are casting, whether it is completely free of pits & porosity, whether you are doing any chemical pretreatment besides that dip in cleaning solution, and what your tin plating solution consists of. Thanks.

Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
January 2019

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