Zincate Dip (UK and EU only)

£12.94 – £82.99 + VAT

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This Zincate Dip allows you to plate on aluminium. After dipping your work in the zincate, you can then brush or tank plate.

It is best to check if your aluminium is conductive before starting, by using one of our conductivity testers. Your aluminium may be anodised and this will make it non-conductive and therefore impossible to plate.

You will need to remove the anodised layer before you dip it in our Zincate Dip and then brush or tank plate. Please see our video showing you how to do this by clicking on the ‘Videos’ tab.

Please see the links below in the ‘Related products’ section.

 

HS Code: 3824 99 70

Here is an example of a piece of aluminium we have gold plated using our zincate dip.

For full instructions please see the ‘Videos’ and ‘Process sequences’ tabs.

Here’s a video showing how to remove an anodised layer from anodised aluminium so that it becomes conductive and plateable. Once the anodised layer is removed you can then dip it in our Zincate Dip and plate on top.

Back to Product Description

Zincate dip produces a dense, continuous immersion layer of zinc on aluminium, which can then be plated with other metals.
It is possible to brush plate small, non-complexly shaped zincated aluminium articles for functional purposes such as electrical contacts. We recommend thickening the brush plating solution first with Thickener before starting plating. We do not recommend that the brush plating process is used for decorative items such as mobile phones.
Adhesion can be improved by stripping the zincated layer off in ActiClean then re-zincating. Please refer to Tech Specs for more information.

Operating Conditions and Deposit Data

Temperature 18 – 25 °C
Immersion time 30 seconds to 2 minutes (see notes)
Thickness of zinc film 0.5 – 0.6 microns
Agitation Occasional work movement.
Appearance of deposit Grey continuous layer
Special storage requirements Away from strong acids
Shelf life 1 – 2 years
Health and Safety classification Irritant
Special considerations None
Transport (UN number) 1824

 

Notes:

  • The aluminium article should be dipped until a continuous grey film appears.
  • After  the zincate dip, quickly rinse and dry the article with a clean paper towel and then plate with our Nickel Brush Plating Solution which has been gelled with our Thickener.
  • For maximum adhesion, heat treat at 250 – 300 centigrade for an hour after zincating
    and drying with a clean paper towel but before nickel plating.
  • If left in the solution too long, the adhesion of the zinc film is reduced, leading to
    blistering and in extreme cases, lifting of the plating.
  • To strip the zincated layer, dip in ActiClean  for 10 minutes. Please note that once
    the ActiClean has been used for stripping, it cannot be used for any other process.

General guide;

Certain small items, for example Swabs, Nibs and Plating Pens can be sent by normal post within the UK

  • The courier option for UK deliveries is FedEx
  • Free UK mainland delivery available on orders over £200
  • International orders usually 3-5 working days.

For all price quotations for deliveries, please add your items to our shopping cart. You will be able to see the shipping costs by clicking on the ‘Calculate shipping’ button in the cart and before checking out.

Please click on the link below to download the SDS for this product:

https://goldn.co.uk/msds/zincate.pdf

  1. Make sure the surface of your aluminium is conductive. You can test for this with our Conductivity Tester.
  2. If it is conductive you can go straight into using our zincate dip. For instructions, please see the ‘Videos’ tab.
  3. If it isn’t conductive your aluminium may be anodised. You will need to remove this before plating. For instructions, please see the ‘Videos’ tab. After this, follow the instructions for applying the zincate dip in the video.
  4. Once you have a layer of zincate dip the next step is to plate with our alkaline copper brush or tank plating solution. You can get the best adhesion by using our alkaline copper tank plating solution.
  5. If you then want to plate a layer of gold and the item will be coming into regular and sustained contact with skin (for example jewellery or watches) you will need to plate a barrier layer of silver with our silver tank plating solution. If this isn’t the case then a barrier layer of nickel (either brush or tank) before gold will be sufficient.

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