Polished nickel faucets
- Thread starter Packard
- Start date
Cheese
Member
- Joined
- Jan 16, 2015
- Messages
- 12,503
Packard said:
No they are not solid nickel...that'd make Festool tools seem cheap in comparison. Polished nickel is a less white, more yellow metal, similar to polished stainless but still having a stronger, softer coloration. Both polished stainless & polished nickel take on a slightly yellow hue that adds richness to the surface.
Polished nickel like polished chrome has to be applied over a base material which is usually copper, plated over brass for faucets or copper, plated over steel for bumpers. In both instances the surface finish of the base material is extremely important and determines the amount of sheen the finished product produces.
For brushed nickel, the copper plated subsurface can be relatively "crude" compared to that needed for polished nickel and yet still provide a desirable brushed nickel surface.
I found this comparison.
[attachimg=1]
Attachments
I come from the metal working industry and I am very familiar with plating.
Early chrome plating was “triple chrome plated”. That meant the first coat was a “flash” of copper, which acted as a primer and assured good adhesion.
The second coat was a thick layer of the very soft nickel plating. Nickel buffs up really well and is the “polished” part of the polished chrome.
And finally a very thin layer of chrome which is a very hard finish and resists scratching well.
Modern chemistry for chrome plating baths has pretty much eliminated the flash of copper as being unnecessary.
Modern nickel plating is “self leveling” and generally does not require any post plating polishing.
Nickel has a very slightly yellow appearance and chrome has a slightly blue appearance. Those casts of colors are not usually noticeable unless a piece of chrome is placed next to a nickel plated part.
Bathroom faucets are typically made from zinc die casting, though some high end pieces may be made from solid brass.
The die casting is placed in a vibratory trough with media and water and the media polishes the casting to the smooth finish. The self leveling nickel is then applied and then the chrome.
So, it would seem that the nickel parts have one less process than the chrome parts, and yet the polished nickel faucets seem to be in the $250.00 to $500.00 range, and the chrome faucets are in the $90.00 to $175.00 range.
Note: There is now available a “plateable grade” of ABS plastics. Which means that the plastic can conduct electricity, a requirement of plating. The plastic parts come out of the mold with a perfect surface finish so no polishing is required.
Chrome plating is done on “racks” which generally means that the parts to be plated have to be placed on the rack by a human and removed from the rack when it has gone through the plating process. So each piece has a labor cost for racking plus the plating cost.
Plastic molded parts can be made on a “tree” with several components attached to one tree. These can be racked as one piece, even though several are getting plated at a time.
So cheap faucets are often made from this ABS. I am not very familiar with the process, but I think the chrome goes directly on the parts with no nickel and no copper.
(Sorry for the long dissertation.)
But my point is that it seems that nickel parts would cost less than chrome by a small margin (there is one less step). But, in fact the nickel parts cost more by a multiple of the cheaper chrome parts.
I don’t understand that.
Early chrome plating was “triple chrome plated”. That meant the first coat was a “flash” of copper, which acted as a primer and assured good adhesion.
The second coat was a thick layer of the very soft nickel plating. Nickel buffs up really well and is the “polished” part of the polished chrome.
And finally a very thin layer of chrome which is a very hard finish and resists scratching well.
Modern chemistry for chrome plating baths has pretty much eliminated the flash of copper as being unnecessary.
Modern nickel plating is “self leveling” and generally does not require any post plating polishing.
Nickel has a very slightly yellow appearance and chrome has a slightly blue appearance. Those casts of colors are not usually noticeable unless a piece of chrome is placed next to a nickel plated part.
Bathroom faucets are typically made from zinc die casting, though some high end pieces may be made from solid brass.
The die casting is placed in a vibratory trough with media and water and the media polishes the casting to the smooth finish. The self leveling nickel is then applied and then the chrome.
So, it would seem that the nickel parts have one less process than the chrome parts, and yet the polished nickel faucets seem to be in the $250.00 to $500.00 range, and the chrome faucets are in the $90.00 to $175.00 range.
Note: There is now available a “plateable grade” of ABS plastics. Which means that the plastic can conduct electricity, a requirement of plating. The plastic parts come out of the mold with a perfect surface finish so no polishing is required.
Chrome plating is done on “racks” which generally means that the parts to be plated have to be placed on the rack by a human and removed from the rack when it has gone through the plating process. So each piece has a labor cost for racking plus the plating cost.
Plastic molded parts can be made on a “tree” with several components attached to one tree. These can be racked as one piece, even though several are getting plated at a time.
So cheap faucets are often made from this ABS. I am not very familiar with the process, but I think the chrome goes directly on the parts with no nickel and no copper.
(Sorry for the long dissertation.)
But my point is that it seems that nickel parts would cost less than chrome by a small margin (there is one less step). But, in fact the nickel parts cost more by a multiple of the cheaper chrome parts.
I don’t understand that.
Bob D. said:
It would not matter much.
I recall getting quotes to plate small parts in brass, and then for a lark, I got pricing in 24K gold.
There was 1/2 cent difference per part in the price. I asked the gold plater how that was possible. He said, “How much gold do you think I put on? About 1/4 cent compared to brass which would be less than 1/10 of that. The cost is in racking, nickel plating and un-racking.
I doubt that there is as much as 5 cents difference in materials cost of the coating. There is some other mechanism that is separating the costs by that much.
Note: I was aware that lead in the brass substrate created adhesion issues with electro less nickel. The company I worked for did very little in brass and I am not at all familiar with that substrate.
The cost of plating is labor, EPA compliance, overhead and burden, chemistry (plating solutions) and the anode (the material to be plated onto the product).Bob D. said:
I once had to get a quote on brass plating some small wire handles. On a lark I got a price for the same part in 24k gold. The gold part was 1/2 cent more than the brass.
I asked the vendor how that could be. He said that the difference in cost between the amount of gold on the part compared to the amount of brass was probably less than a quarter of a cent.
That the cost of the nickel plating under the gold was more than the gold. They lay a heavy layer of nickel to smooth out the surface. Nickel “self-levels” to fill voids.
The amount of nickel plating involved would not amount to more than 25 or 50 cents for an entire faucet assembly. So that would not account for the major price difference between the polished nickel and the chrome.
Similar threads
