WOOD'S NICKEL STRIKE

For proper, adherent plating it is necessary to electroplate onto clean, raw metal -- not onto a layer of oxidized metal. Plating onto stainless steel presents the problem that stainless steel instantly re-oxidizes, so simply removing the oxide won't solve the problem.

The most common way to successfully plate onto stainless steel is to start with a nickel strike, the best known of which was invented by Donald Wood (deceased) of Hill-Cross Co., and is known as the Wood's Nickel Strike.

The Wood's Nickel consists of a low concentration of nickel and a high concentration of hydrochloric acid, applied with a high current density. What it achieves is dissolving the oxides from the stainless steel surface while simultaneously depositing a thin layer of fresh nickel which other plating solutions will be able to successfully plate onto.

Wood's nickel is also sometimes used to allow successful, adherent, plating onto old nickel which has acquired an oxide surface (although it is not necessarily the best approach for that problem). And it is also sometimes used before acid copper plating on steel (because acid copper will immersion deposit ⇦ huh? on steel and form a non-adherent plating) Please search the site for dozens of threads addressing operational parameters and every other aspect of Wood's Nickel.