Silver Plating

Silver plating is one of the oldest metal plating processes known to man. First developed in the mid-19th century, silver was plated for decorative purposes on hollowware and flatware, greatly reducing material costs when compared to pure ‘silverware’ counterparts. Today, although the chemical makeup of the baths used hasn’t varied substantially, technological advancements have vastly increased the applications to which silver plating is applicable. Industries such as electrical supply and distribution, medical, telecommunications, LED lighting, high-performance bearings, and etc. all benefit from the silver plating of vital components.

A Square specializes in silver plating and thus, offer a wide-variety of finishes and undercoats to suite all of their customer’s silver plating needs. Matte, semi-bright, and full-bright finishes are available from our plating processes. Depending on a customer’s specific application or preferences, a variety of undercoats are available: copper, bright nickel, sulfamate nickel, electroless nickel, tin, and etc. Contact us for to discuss the specific needs and to receive our recommendations for your project.

DRAWBACKS OF SILVER PLATING

Silver is a semi-precious metal. As a result, it demonstrates phenomenal material properties. However, depending on the specifics of the project there could be potential drawbacks when utilizing this metal finish:

• Cost: Rising commodities prices have had a large impact on the silver market price. Thus, for some projects it is no longer economical to plate the entire part. A Square combats this challenge by engineering state of the art fixtures and methods to selectively plate only the portion of the part that absolutely needs silver plating. This helps to greatly reduce the material cost per piece.
• Price Volatility: Commodities markets in general, and the silver market in particular, vary widely from day to day. To address market volatility, A Square offers our customers the option of receiving a firm price for a particular job (best for one-offs or small lot sizes) or a factored price that reflects the daily fluctuations in the silver commodities market (best for ongoing projects with multiple ship dates).
• Silver Tarnish: As a semi-precious metal silver is subject to tarnishing. This is particularly true for pure silver. Over time pink or black oxides and sulfides can from on the surface of silver plated parts. In many applications (particularly high voltage applications), the formation of tarnish does not adversely affect the performance of the silver coating. However, the formation of silver sulfide can be problematic in some instances. To prevent tarnishing, A Square can post-treat silver plating with anti tarnishing compounds. In addition, it is standard practice for A Square to ship and protect our silver plating with sulfur-free materials.

SILVER FINISHES

Silver plating is available at A Square in all finishes. Brightened silver is accomplished using a non-metallic brightner with low stress characteristics, exhibiting high oxidation resistance and excellent high voltage conductivity.

• Matte
• Semi-Bright
• Bright

PLATING SPECIFICATIONS

• AMS 2410
• AMS 2412
• ASTM B-700 (Type I, II, and III)
• QQ-S-365: Type I, II, & III
• Customer directed specifications

In general, we plate our silver to industry standard specifications (ASTM B-700 or QQ-S-365). However, we have the capability to adapt our processes to suit any given customers engineering requisites or specifications. Please contact us to engineer a customized solution to fit your part performance requirements and silver plating needs.

PLATING METHODS

• Rack Plating
• Barrel Plating
• Selective Plating

Properties of Silver

• Appearance: White lustrous metal
• Vickers Hardness: 250 MPa (22.2 HRC)
• Conductivity (Thermal): 429 W/(m·K)
• Resistivity (Electrical): 15.87 nΩ·m
• Density: 10.5 g/cm³ (.38 lb/in³ )
• Melting Point: 961.8 °C ​(1763.2 °F)
• Atomic Weight: 107.9 g/mol