What is Brush Plating?

Brush plating, or selective plating, is a method of electroplating on a localized area without the use of an immersion tank. It is primarily used for enhancing surfaces on OEM components, permanent repairs and salvaging worn or mis-machined parts. Although, originally conceived and developed by George Ixci in Paris, France in 1938, the technique has been engineered and enhanced by continuous research and development. The equipment is portable, enabling technicians to plate parts in place without disassembly, saving companies money and minimizing down time.

In a typical operation, the part is first masked and then a series of base material-specific preparatory steps are conducted to ensure an adherent deposit. The last step is the plating of the metal deposit to the desired thickness. A portable power pack provides the direct current required for plating, anodizing and electropolishing. The power pack has two leads, one of which is connected to the plating tool and the other which is connected to the part being finished. A brush-plating power pack gives the operator the ability to control and monitor the voltage, amperage and ampere hours for a given job, as well as to change the polarity as required for each of the steps involved in the process.

Brush plating requires movement between the plating tool and the part. This can be accomplished by moving the plating tool over the part, by moving the part and keeping the plating tool stationery, or by moving both. Dedicated electrodes are used for each operation in the process to electrochemically prepare the part and then to plate the final deposit. The electrodes are covered with an absorbent material saturated with a solution and then applied to the part.

Surface Preparation

The more attention you pay to preparing your surface at the start, the better your end result will be. This first stage can be broken down into three possible further stages; polishing, cleaning and activation. It’s unlikely you’ll have to do all three, it just depends on the type and condition of the surface you’re plating.

Polishing

Brush plating can’t hide deep scratches, so for a scratch free finish, make sure you polish these out before you start. If the scratches aren’t very deep then you can do this by hand, using the Hand Polishing Kit. If the scratches are quite deep then you’ll probably need to use a polishing machine.

Activating

If you’re using the MPU, a separate powered activation stage may not be needed. However some surfaces, such as stainless steel, nickel and nickel containing alloys such as nickel silver can build an oxide layer that is most efficiently removed with a powered activation using a cleaning agent. If you are cleaning larger areas of other kinds of metal then using the Cleaner might be the best option.