Companies requiring metal finishing turn to professionals to provide them with the services they require. In some industries and applications, there may be specific standards required, but it is still up to the metal finishing company to provide zinc plating or other types of finishing to those standards consistently on every item they produce.
Additionally, there can be other differences between finishing companies. Finding the company that offers the quality of plating required to the specifications needed while offering top customer service is a must. Learning about the different companies will be critical to making this choice.
Understanding of Your Requirements
If you have specific standards, such as ISO or ASTM, or even if the parts must be RoHS compliant will all be important to consider. However, even if you are not working to those specific standards, there are factors that the finishing company should ask about and consider in their finishing process.
The thickness of the plating will be important to consider, particularly in fabricating parts for specialized applications. As the coating thickness will change the actual dimensions of the part by the thickness of the coating, ensuring the tolerances required are maintained consistently through production will be critical.
Working with Specific Base Substrates
For the best in zinc plating, it is important to start with the best in substrates. Anything that is pitted or has scaling or any type of surface contamination will impact the plating process.
The finishing company and the design team may need to address the condition of the base metal prior to the plating operation. This extra step will be the difference in the final quality and consistency of the plating both immediately after the process and in the future after it is exposed to heat, corrosive materials and for further manufacturing.
Shape of the Parts
All plating processes, due to the actual mechanism, may have problems with what is known as throwing. This is the ability to control the plating across complex surfaces such as into tubes or into corners or other unusual angles and shapes.
A top zinc plating company will be able to accommodate for these atypical issues. This may include adjusting the actual plating process to include the inside of fittings and shapes within a component that can be problematic without a complete understanding of the process.
Finding the right plating company will make a difference in your parts. They will be superior to those produced by companies without state of the art equipment and top professionals with the experience needed for the tough jobs.
