Production Capacity

At African Electroplating our capacity and expertise allows us to plate large runs of hundreds of thousands of identical items, or irreplaceable one-off items on any one of our plating lines. Day and night, and weekend shifts are scheduled according to workload. We understand that in manufacturing, urgencies arise, therefore flexibility.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Product Design / Preparation

There are a number of factors that determine whether a product can be successfully electroplated. See the list below for some simple guidelines on design and product preparation before plating. We also understand the relationship between design and manufacturing/plating of products and the challenges involved. Feel free to contact us for any design guidance or information that will assist you in obtaining the best plating finish possible.

Drainage

Products for all finishes must be able to drain freely. Items are moved through a series of tanks and must not carry solution from one tank to another. Correctly placed drainage and breathing holes as well as the absence of any cupping areas where solution may be trapped are important.

Shading

Shading is the phenomenon where the free passage of metal deposits is blocked by the complexity of the object to be plated. Double walled products, excessive recesses and assemblies with overlapping parts are usually concerns that need to be addressed before plating takes place. Contact us for more information or design and assembly guidelines to avoiding shading.

Size

Where possible, fabricate the item to be plated in sections. Where items are to be polished before plating (required for the best finish in decorative application), it is critical that the surfaces to be polished are accessible to the polishing buff. All polishing is done by hand and the goods to be polished need to be able to be handled safely. For much larger items, extra labour costs will be incurred. It is also important that products fit into our plating tanks, larger items that take up more room in the tanks will be more costly as costing is based on amount of products that our tank can take and the plating time needed per finish.

Plating Build Up

Electroplating deposits will build more thickly on sections that “stick out”, and items fitting together with close tolerances may need to be shielded or masked off to lower or stop deposition.

Surface Preparation

Whilst we are able to easily remove most dirt, rust and mill scale, removal of paint and old plating is an extra process, carrying additional cost. Welding slag and excessive welding build up is not removed by our processes and should be cleaned off prior to delivery of the item to us. Contact us for more information and guidelines on surface preparation.