Nickel Plating (General)

Varland specializes in a variety of high quality nickel plating finishes that can meet your nickel plating needs. We are truly experts when it comes to barrel nickel plating. We have extensive familiarity and know-how with nickel plating processes and have been supplying our customers with high quality nickel plated finishes for decades. A more detailed description of our electrolytic and electroless nickel plating capabilities can be found below.

Electrolytic Nickel Plating

Benefits & Uses

Electrolytic nickel plating is one of the most versatile surface-finishing processes available. Nickel plating is used for a variety of engineering and decorative applications. Nickel is excellent for high wear applications and can withstand high temperature brazing operations. Nickel also has excellent plating coverage ability. At sufficient thicknesses, especially if copper is added as a base coat, nickel will provide some corrosion protection when plated over steel parts.

The brightness of nickel plated finishes can vary greatly—from satin (or matte) finishes to extremely mirror-bright finishes. These brightness variations are dependent on the type and characteristics of the nickel plating bath being used, the thickness of the nickel plating, and the surface condition of the part being plated.

Our Capabilities

Varland Metal Service has extensive capabilities and advantages when it comes to barrel nickel plating. We have the ability to nickel plate over ferrous alloys including low and high carbon steels (including heat treated/case hardened steels), stainless steel, etc. We also have years of experience nickel plating on copper alloys including brass, copper, and phosphorous bronze.

Excellent Adhesion
Our experience combined with our computerized process control allows us to nickel plate with extremely high reliability and quality. Our nickel processes provide excellent adhesion and have the ability to pass even the toughest adhesion tests. Parts that get crimped, bent, or staked during assembly will be adherent. Parts that get brazed or welded will not blister when heated to the extreme temperatures necessary for these operations.
Delicate & Threaded Parts
Our plating process control and engineered material handling solutions allow us to barrel plate externally threaded and dimensionally-critical parts with excellent success.

Note: to achieve good results, raw parts must be properly engineered to allow for plating build-up
Production Capacity
We have the production capacity to handle your nickel plating requirements. We have two fully automated barrel plating lines that can handle very large volume needs. Computerized process control of these lines ensures consistent and highly reliable plating. Our large nickel plating production capacity also allows us extremely quick turn-around times—typically three to five days in house.
Flexibility
In addition to our automated nickel plating lines, we also maintain a manual plating line for more specialized jobs, small lots, etc. Our same process controls, combined with experienced operators, help us achieve the same degree of quality on parts plated on our manual line.

We have been solving nickel plating problems on hard-to-plate parts for years. Our Engineering and Production Staff has extensive nickel plating knowledge and experience.

Contact Varland today to find out more about our nickel plating capabilities and how we can help you with your nickel plating needs.

Electroless Nickel Plating

Benefits & Uses

Electroless nickel is used today in a variety of industries including automotive, electronics, aerospace, and oil and gas and holds several key advantages over typical electro-deposited (or electrolytic) nickel plating.

Excellent Coverage
Electroless nickel provides complete and uniform coverage over the entire surface of the part. Electrolytic nickel plating is typically unable to provide even coverage on oddly configured parts, such as blind hole and deeply recessed parts.
Hardness & Wear Resistance
Electroless nickel is sometimes used as a substitute for hard chromium due to its hardness characteristics and excellent wear resistance. The degree of hardness in E.N. plated finishes will vary based on the plating bath characteristics—specifically the phosphorous content of the bath.
Corrosion Protection
When plated to sufficient thicknesses, electroless nickel plated finishes can provide parts with increased corrosion resistance.

Other benefits of electroless nickel plated finishes include good lubricity, good solderability and weldability, and good conductivity and electrical properties

Our Capabilities

Our electroless nickel plating process offers extremely high reliability and quality. We have the ability to electroless nickel plate over ferrous alloys including low and high carbon steels (including heat treated/case hardened steels) and copper alloys.

Dimensional Tolerances
Electroless nickel is sometimes used on parts with very tight dimensional tolerances. The plating characteristics of E.N. combined with our process controls allow us to consistently electroless nickel plate parts to very tight thickness specifications. Our x-ray fluorescence thickness checking ability allows us to measure thickness on E.N. plated parts with great accuracy.
Delicate Parts
Our plating process control and engineered material handling solutions allow us to barrel plate externally threaded and dimensionally-critical parts with excellent success.

Note: to achieve good results, raw parts must be properly engineered to allow for plating build-up

Contact Varland today to find out more about our electroless nickel plating capabilities and how we can help you with your electroless nickel plating needs.