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SURFACE FINISHING

SOURIAU PA&E has over 20 years of experience in ceramic-to-metal finishing. We are experts in plating a variety of metals including: aluminum, titanium, iron/nickel alloys, copper and even our explosively bimetallic transition materials. We have a staff of certified chemical and process engineers which allows us to plate your parts in house where we can maintain finite control over these critical finishing process.

SOURIAU PA&E offers customers a complete solution to meet their metal surface finishing needs.

Chromate Conversion - MIL-C-5541

In the chromate conversion process, the metal surface of a part is converted to a superficial layer containing a complex mixture of chromium compounds. The chromate film is soft when freshly formed, but once dried and aged, the film becomes more abrasive resistant. Chromate conversion coatings provide excellent corrosion resistance.

Electroless Nickel - MIL-C-26074

Electroless nickel describes the plating of nickel deposits, which may contain phosphorus and boron, onto catalytic metallic or catalyzed non-metallic substrates by chemical reduction. Unlike electrolytic plated nickel coatings, electroless nickel coatings produce very uniform, hard, and lubricious coatings, without an externally applied electric current, and are normally identified according to their phosphorus content.

Electrolytic Copper - MIL-C-14550

Electrolytic copper produces a fine grained, smooth, dense, and ductile copper deposit, which is nonporous and has excellent bonding properties. It has uniform low current density distribution with excellent micro-throw. Electrolytic copper plating serves to build up copper plating thickness.

Electrolytic Gold - ASTM-B488 and MIL-G-45204

Electrolytic gold offers high electrical conductivity, solder-ability, weld-ability, infrared-reflectivity, and excellent corrosion resistance (as well as sealing the nickel surface to eliminate passivation). Electrolytic gold is primarily used in the electrical industry for RF connectors and printed circuits, and in the electronics industry for transistor integrated circuits.

Electrolytic Nickel - QQ-N-290 and ASTM-B733

Unlike electroless nickel, electrolytic nickel uses an external current supply to plate the nickel to various substrates. It is one of the most widely used types of plating due to fact it can be welded unlike electroless nickel. Electrolytic nickel comes in different forms, and is one of the most popular being sulfamate nickel, which has a dull, matte finish, and is often used as an undercoating for gold applications.

Electrolytic Tin-Lead - MIL-T-10727

Tin-lead is used to prepare a solderable part without using gold. Typically an undercoating of electrolytic nickel is applied prior to the tin-lead plating. The tin-lead would be followed by several hundred micro-inches of eutectic solder.