Gold Plating

What is Gold Plating?

As a precious metal, Gold has many desirable properties including extremely high levels of wear and corrosion as well as excellent heat and electrical conductivity. Electro-plating has long been used to give components the desirable properties of Gold but without the high cost that manufacture would entail. Silchrome offer an immersion plating process that is only designed for small sized components, and will only add a nominal amount. (usually between 1-2 microns) This process is not suitable for decorative plating.

What is the Process?

Gold Plating is an electro-plating technique in which parts are placed into a vat containing an electrolytic solution and a current is run into the bath promoting the build-up of the Gold onto the part. In order to obtain the best possible results, parts will first be subject to a number of pre-treatments depending on their material which are all carried out in house.

What Are the Advantages?

Gold is widely used as a functional coating in the Electronics Industry due to its disinclination to form an oxide layer. It provides a highly corrosive resistant layer that is a strong conductor of electricity. The gold deposited in our immersion process is pure and would be suitable for maintaining solderability of Copper surfaces. Gold will most often be deposited onto a Nickel undercoat which will assist it's wear resistance and help overcome any issues associated with the porosity in the Gold deposit.

What We Offer

Silchrome Plating offer an Immersion process suitable for small parts where only a nominal amount of material thickness is required. We will carry out all pre and post plating processes to ensure the best possible finish.