Stupid Plating question.....
 

I have a question for all you guys that have your fasteners plated. I have a bunch of stuff that I am getting yellow and clear zinc plated. Can you tell me if undercoating and stuff will come off in one of the cleaners that they use to plate or do I need to clean them all really good prior? Im assuming that they all need to be cleaned up but I dont want to waste a bunch of time if it isnt necessary. Thanks in advance! Mark

I took a bunch of fasteners and larger brake and suspension components to be yellow zinc coated.

I did nothing as the company there degreased and blasted them before doing the plating.

Ian

Thanks Ian!!! I already blasted my backing plates so I'm sure they will be fine but I am more worried about the random bolts and stuff that have crud on them. The place Im thinking about using wont be S blasting just using their chemicals. I really need to just ask them. I was just bieng lazy by posting it here :)

You want to take the fasteners in pretty clean. No paint, undercoating, or heavy grease.

The plating process will not remove these deposits. If your plater has to clean them as a seperate step, they are probably going to charge you - if they even accept the parts. If they aren't clean, these areas will not be plated.

Toss the fasteners in a jar of laquer thinner and let them soak till the junk falls off.

A bit of light oil on the parts is not a problem and will come off in the plating prep.

FYI, if these are suspension bolts be sure to have the plater perform a "post bake" to avoid embrittlement. Else your bolts may crack.

Most of these places have plenty of equipment to clean the hardware they recieve. Whether it's included in the price I don't know. I'd ask the company your working with.

Sometimes they can tumble the parts in steel shot to clean them or use a commercial grade de-greaser. Depends upon what the parts are as you don't want threads getting banged up in the process. I always write on the work order "please clean all components before plating" even if they are fresh parts off the CNC, because you never know what kind of oils are present on the surface and will later cause the plating to flake off.

+1 on the post heat treatment for structural hardware.

I like to think of the platers as WYSIWYG. Bead blast and they will be dull yellow when you get them back. Leave dark stains and they will show thru.I like to use a wire wheel of all parts to burnish them before giving them to the plater.