Anodizing entails the immersion of an aluminum part in an electrolyte where an electric current is passed through the part. The surface is converted to aluminum oxide – one of the hardest substances known.
Aluminum alloys are anodized to increase corrosion resistance and to allow dyeing and improved lubrication Aluminum casting requires special care in working with the secondary alloys within the casting. The process of growing the anodized aluminum layer is done by passing a direct current through an electrolytic solution, with the aluminum serving as the anode. The current releases hydrogen at the cathode (the negative electrode) and oxygen at the surface of the aluminum anode, creating a build-up of aluminum oxide.
Bright dip is a chemical polishing process that brightens and enables bold coloring of aluminum primarily for cosmetic applications. This is accomplished by leveling the microscopic roughness of the aluminum surface and increasing its specularity, leaving no deposits on the surface of the part and protecting the anodized product from metal corrosion, fading and scratching.
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Sulfuric acid is the most widely used solution to produce anodize coatings. Type II is defined as having a modern thickness range between 0.00007” to 0.001”
Sulfuric anodizing is used on applications to improve its aesthetics, provide vibrant color coatings, and good wear and corrosion resistance. Sulfuric anodizing (Type II) uses conventional coating methods produced from a sulfuric acid bath, with the process taking between 20 to 60 minutes depending on the type of alloy used. Sulfuric anodizing increases the material’s wear resistance, corrosion resistance, ability to retain lubricants and PTFE coatings, and electrical and thermal insulation.
The Type III Hardcoat Anodize process produces superior hardness and denseness. When a part is hardcoated, it increases the micro finish 2-5 times, depending on the alloy.
Some industrial applications of Hardcoat Anodizing include highly intricate parts such as pistons, anti-lock brake assemblies, pump components, valves, sliding parts, insulation plates and transmission parts. Some retail applications for Hardcoat Anodizing and Sulfuric anodizing include cookware, bike rims, locks and levels.
Type III with PTFE is a hardcoat anodize with Teflon. This application is engineered to provide exceptional lubricity, wear resistance, and high levels of corrosion resistance. This type of anodize provides a good surface for aluminum molds, as the lubricity of the surface translates into superior release characteristics, and the coating remains stable at high temperatures. In addition, the synergy between the crystalline formation of the oxide film and the molecular structure of the PTFE yields a good wear characteristics.
Common industries that require Type III with PTFE are; Aerospace/Astrospace/Aviation, Firearms, Machinery, Electronics, Marine, Oil, Chemical Industry, and more.
Precision masking is used on parts that require multiple metal plating processes such as steel, aluminum, and copper. Precision masking is used for the application of different and often incompatible processes to the same part.
Some industrial applications of Hardcoat Anodizing include highly intricate parts such as pistons, anti-lock brake assemblies, pump components, valves, sliding parts, insulation plates and transmission parts. Some retail applications for Hardcoat Anodizing and Sulfuric anodizing include cookware, bike rims, locks and levels.
We offers top quality electroplating and electroless plating services with over 62 years of experience and cater to customers with demanding applications such as safety critical parts. We offer a large range of plating characteristics such as; high reliability, safety critical, life altering, lifesaving, abrasion resistant, chemical resistant, corrosion resistant, EMI/RFI shielding, impact resistance, and more.
Electrically, the conductivity of Black Zinc Nickel plating ensures shell-to-shell continuity of less than 2.5m and less than 5m after 500hrs salt spray chamber time. This superior electrical performance ensures high levels of EMC screening can be maintained within sensitive systems in demanding situations.
Aesthetically, black nickel plating provides a reflective and shiny black look when plated on bright nickel. When plating over dull substrates or matte finishes you will not receive the reflective or shiny attributes. The advantages of using black nickel over other options such as black chrome is that on black nickel does not show smears such as finger prints for example, and has a more uniform color.
Brass, which is an alloy made of copper and zinc, can be varied to create a wide range of brasses with varying properties, is widely used for decorative applications in antiques and ox finishes. Brass plating is also a great alternation for sealing zinc die-castings for post molding operations.
Brass plating provides an excellent diffusion barrier preventing components of the base material from migrating into the subsequent plating layers.
We run small to high volume production runs and can plate brass on a variety of substances including nickel, steel, bronze, stainless steel, and zinc die casting. We offer the highest quality brass plating services at the best price.
Copper plating creates an outstanding barrier layer that can cover substrate metals and alloys. Copper plating provides an easy-to-plate, level, and in some cases, smooth substrate, making it even more popular than nickel plating for certain metal finishing applications. Although it can be used independently, copper is typically used as an under plate for deposits such as nickel, tin, tin/lead, gold or silver.
Copper plating provides an excellent diffusion barrier which prevents components of the base material from migrating into the subsequent plating layers. Copper plating generates high electrical conductivity, which has made it an excellent and inexpensive choice for high tech products as well as other applications.
Yielding excellent wear and corrosion resistance, electroless nickel is an autocatalytic plating process resulting in a reflective layer of nickel-phosphorous. The total build up plating process provides uniformity on all surfaces, making post machining unnecessary when dimensions are accurate. DiFruscia Industries offers surface treatments to increase hardness, lubricity and corrosion resistance.
All of DFI-Electroplating’s electroless nickel process provide freedom from porosity and have a controlled hardness heat treatable to 68 and 70 Rockwell C, respectively.
Other benefits include its natural lubricity, which provides excellent release properties, an infinite throw, which eliminates auxiliary anodes, a solderable hard coat for light metals and a self-polishing effect when used in molding operations.
Electrolytic nickel plating provides a non-uniform thickness of deposit of the surface of its component, with the thickness being dependent on the current density of the part surface. Electrolytic nickel plating is also one of the most versatile metal finishing process with end uses ranging from decorative finishes to functional applications. Engineering applications of electrolytic nickel coatings are to improve or modify surface properties including corrosion resistance, magnetism and resistance to oxidation at high temperatures.
Nickel sulfate is often referred to as “bright nickel” and is used in applications where decorative reflectivity is required. Sulfate nickel does not perform well in applications where ductility or solderability is an important consideration.
Gold, being a precious metal meaning it will not oxidize in air, allows for its electrical conductivity to stay uniform over long periods of time. Benefits of gold plating include corrosion resistances, good solderability, and when alloyed with cobalt, good wear resistance.
In regards to application use, components that require gold plating are those used in electrical switch contacts, connector pins and barrels, and other applications used in intermittent electrical contact. Gold plating has widespread use for medical and dental applications as exemplified in the production of certain mechanical systems used in microsurgical procedures. Gold’s anti-corrosive and heat-shielding properties are ideally suited for the aerospace industry in the manufacturing of rocket engines.
While Nickel Sulfamate can be used by itself, it is typically used as an under plate for deposits such as, tin, tin/lead, gold, palladium or silver. Nickel provides a diffusion barrier that prevents components of the base material from migrating into the subsequent layers of plating.
Precious metals are valued for their scarcity, its high economic value, and lustrous appearance. Common application of precious metals are its use in the minting of bullion coins, the manufacturing of the fine jewelry, with the most common elements being gold, silver, and platinum. The benefits using precious metal plating on components include increased aesthetic appeal, superior resistance against corrosion and wear, and are highly ductile and conductive. Though it’s more costly its costs are offset by the consistent superior quality over time.
DiFruscia Indsutries offer a wide variety of plating services for unique plating requirements. We will adapt our plating equipment to meet the specific needs of our customer allowing us to offer services that can deposit metals with high precision to reduce the amount of precious metal being used in the plating process and the cost to our customers.
Silver has the most applications in comparison to any other plated metal. Silver plated metal objects are used in almost any industry and it’s difficult to replace any other metal in its place. In addition to this, Silver is the least expensive precious metal of its group. Silver also has the highest electrical and thermal conductivity and light reflectance of any current known metal, and the lowest weight and melting point of the precious metal group.
Common application of silver plating are to increase a product’s life cycle by replacing the material coating of choice of a tin or alloy coating. Silver plating is also commonly used to plate components used in electrical contacts such as conductors, silver plating is used in specialized mirrors, windows coatings and in catalysis of chemical reactions.
Tin plating is used in applications to protect ferrous and nonferrous surfaces. Components that require tin plating are those commonly used in electronics, automotive, appliances, computer hardware, medical and food processing. Because tin has great ductility it allows a coated base metal sheet to form many different shapes without damaging the surface tin plating layer. Tin plating also provides sacrificial protection for copper, nickel, and other non-ferrous metals, with the exception of steel.
DiFruscia Industries offers lead free tin plating to preserve the solderability of underplated deposits and to offer corrosion protection and superior electrical conductivity where it’s needed.
Zinc electroplating is the method of depositing zinc metal on the surface of another metal, such as steel, by immersing the fasteners in an appropriate plating bath and applying an electrical current. The thickness of zinc plating is dependent on the time the component is spent in the plating bath, the amount of current used, and the chemical composition of the bath.
The benefits of zinc plating are corrosion resistance to the steel components by acting as a barrier and a sacrificial coating. Due to zinc being more electrochemically reactive than steel the zinc plating corrodes sacrificially when exposed to a corrosive environment. This delays the rust formation on steel components even after portions of bare steel are exposed.
Zinc nickel plating provides superior sacrificial corrosion resistance and can be readily passivated. Zinc nickel plating is the preferred plating choice for automotive applications due to its extremely high corrosion resistance. Zinc nickel plated components can resist more than 10,000 hours of neutral salt spray with no effect on the dimensional tolerance of the threaded components.
Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and fabricators often seek our services. By using DiFruscia Industries, a manufacturer can focus on its core production. Established manufacturers with their own coating operations often use our services by outsourcing their overflow and parts that are a drain on their cycle times, or that have special color, quality, and/ or masking considerations.
As a standard part of our finishing process, we provide chemical pre-treatment as required. Degreasing and iron phosphate are standard. Additional pre-finishing processes and services are available, such as shot penning, sand blasting, tumbling. We work on partnership projects in the areas of fabrication, research and development, and packaging of products that are ready for distribution once the coating is applied.
Unique finishes engineered to provide exceptional dry lubrication, and often serve as a more robust product alternative to traditional lubricants and anti-seizing agents such as superficial oils. Depending on your application requirements or desired military or industry specification, dry/solid film lubricants provide benefits by protecting tooling from galling, resist seizure, fretting or corrosion, for a variety of extreme conditions.
Dry film lubricants can be utilized in applications with extreme temperature ranges (from sub-zero to 1200° F) and resist out-gassing under vacuum for use in the aerospace and military industries. We offer a range of these thin film coatings to satisfy your application requirements.
The Cerakote family of products are high quality coatings that are available in both thermoset cure and ambient cures cycles. Cerakote coatings offer extreme hardness, optimize wear resistance and extend the serviceable lifetime of your components.
The use of varying surface roughness and different profiles mean that this coating can be adapted to a specific application. A top coat can also be added to enhance the surface with excellent non-stick properties.
Heat reflective coatings improves fuel and fluid resistances for a large variety of elastomeric surfaces. By applying heat reflective coating to the surface of an elastomeric part, this allows for the bulk of the component to be made of less expensive, less fluid resistant material. Applications for heat reflective coatings include industrial, commercial, and opto-electronics.
Zinc rich coating is used for applications on high strength materials. Zinc’s high corrosion resistance in harsh environments make it an ideal coating for iron and steel products. Zinc’s corrosion resistant capabilities are due to its ability to form dense, adherent corrosion byproducts, leading to a rate of corrosion significantly lower than most ferrous metals, 10 to 100 times slower depending on the environment.
In the conversion coating process the part surface is converted with a chemical or electro-chemical process. The benefits of conversion coating are corrosion protection, increased surface hardness, and to add decorative color. The thickness of conversion coats ranges from 0.00001” to 0.002”.
Pretreatment is a critical step in the electroless nickel plating process that removes any contaminates which could hinder the bonding process and result in low quality or unusable results.
Aluminum chromate conversion coating, which is also referred to as chemical film or under its trade name Alodine or Irridite, creates a thin coating in the range of 0.00001-0.00004 inches in thickness. A unique property of this coat is its amorphous structure with a gel-like composition that is hydrated with water. This characteristic allows aluminum chromate conversion coatings with a unique self-healing ability if scratched or abraded.
Electropolishing is a similar chemical process, but the reverse of, electroplating. The process of electropolishing streamlines the microscopic surface area and smooths out the surface of metal objects such as the 304, 316, and 400 series stainless steel. This results in a metal surface area that is microscopically featureless. The main benefit of electropolishing, besides the smoothness of the metal surface is that electropolishing selectively removes microscopic high points or peaks faster than the rate of attack on the corresponding micro-depressions or “valleys”.
Iron phosphate is the most preferred form of conversion coating for the surface treatment and finishing of ferrous and non-ferrous metals. This is due to the low cost, speed of operations, and the ability to afford excellent corrosion resistances, wear resistance, adhesion, and lubricative properties. The application is the result of phosphate salts dissolved in a phosphoric acid solution chemically reacting with the surface of the part to form an insoluble, crystalline phosphate.
Manganese phosphate coatings are used for corrosion protection, anti-galling, and lubricity. Of the coatings available, manganese phosphate coatings are the hardest of coatings and provides unbeatable corrosion and abrasion protection. Its wear resistance properties are useful when preventing metal-to-metal contact, such as cylinder liners, camshafts, and piston rings, and transmission gears, and also has an excellent oil-retentive properties giving it its lubricity and corrosion resistance. Applications for manganese phosphate coating include the production of bearings, bushings, fasteners, and other common industrial products.
Parts washing is a critical step to the plating process, especially for components being electroplated. Electroplating is particularly sensitive to part cleanliness, since molecular layers of oil can prevent adhesion of the coating. We wash our parts in accordance to the ASTM B3222 standards guide for metals being electroplated. To maintain our top quality service to customers, we continuously make sure all of our components are rigorously cleaned and up to specification standards before applying any processes.
For stainless steel components, the passivation process protects against corrosion and oxidation. During the passivation a transparent film forms on the surface of the component. This film occurs naturally on stainless steel, but the film occurs uniformly and quickly through the passivation process.
The passivation process is determined by the part geometry. A full range of passivation methods are provided to meet the requirements of the industry and industrial standards. As this is a process that finishes safety critical and high reliability components, a fully staffed chemistry lab continuously monitors the passivation process at every step. Inspection and testing are performed to ensure that the passivation process is complete and the parts are free of surface defects.
Zinc phosphate coatings (Type Z) are mainly used for rust proofing on ferrous metals. They can be applied by immersion or spraying. Zinc phosphate is a lighter alternative to manganese phosphate, while providing resistance to harsh elements that tend to wear products quickly. Zinc phosphate provides maximum corrosion protection and extended service life. The coatings provide good corrosion protection by bonding the final finish (stain, oil, wax or paint) to the treated material. The most commonly used applications for Zinc Phosphate are pulleys, springs, slides, and fasteners.
Our powder coating facility will give your product the superior finish that is tough, durable, attractive, economical, and environmentally compliant.
As the powder coating industry grows, so does DiFruscia Industries. We remain an industrial paint and powder coating job shop, a service company, providing quality application of coatings to the specifications of our customers.
C.A.R.C. which stands for chemical agent resistant coating, is the organic topcoat that is used on all armed services’ combat vehicles, aircrafts, and tactical equipment. It is a two part polyurethane that is resistant to water, petroleum, acids, biological, and radioactive agents. These coatings produce a non-porous coat that impedes radioactivity, chemical and biological contaminants from penetrating the coating and the base material. Instead of penetrating the coating, chemicals bead up on the exterior of the surface and are washed off easily.
DiFruscia Industries is an applicator of 3M’s Skotchkote™ Fusion-Bonded Expoxy Coating 134W. 3M Skotchkote™ is a baked green epoxy coating that is used in custom applications to protect internal and external surfaces on pipelines and a variety of different infrastructure components that require corrosion and wear protection. Because the bonding process provides great adhesion, some common applications for this coating are valves, pumps, pipe drains, hydrants, and porous castings. Another benefit of 3M Skotchkote™ is its long gel time, which takes up to 2.5 minutes at 3500F / 1770C, allowing coating of large surfaces or parts with complex recesses can be coated without overspray or laminations.
When it comes to production powder coat DFI is your go to, currently running 2 fully automated lines. From .25” cylindrical parts to 16 ft. grids. We have the tooling, racks and a production mined staff to meet your deadlines, whatever it takes. We embrace LEAN principals and are constantly improving. We have performed time critical, high volume projects for national and global end users. No matter what industry your company serves, we understand the dynamics that make you a success, and these are the same standard we operate by. Quality, on time. No Excuses.
Our custom shop is unique with big company capabilities and one on one project management. We have more capabilities under one roof than any other company in the North East. Employees in our custom coatings group are the best and brightest in the industry. They have proven themselves in the production areas of the company. They bring their problem solving and technical abilities to the table are at your disposal to guide your project from start to finish. They have proven that they understand each process inside and out from how alloys respond to temperatures, to what finish works best in a customer specific application, including the service environment. In order to be effective, efficient and considered a craftsman at DFI all of the above must be true, the only additional requirement … be a perfectionist.
Mechanical finishing is a type of finishing that protects metal parts through sacrificial metallic coating on metal component. The most common metal elements that use this type of finishing are steel and copper. Mechanical finishing works by using a combination of chemical reactions and kinetic forces to adhere the metal surface to the part.
The benefits of mechanical finishing includes a range of colors, salt spray hours, torque tension tolerances and many other specific industry needs. Mechanical plating does not produce Hydrogen Embrittlement and does not require a post bake cycle.
DiFruscia Industries utilizes its blasting options to meet pretreatment and texture requirement for various finishes. The process works on a number of surfaces and it is a fast and efficient method to prepare old materials for re-usual.
Shot peening is the process of bombarding the surface of a metal component with small spherical media called shot. During the shot peening process, each piece of shot that strikes the component acts as a tiny peening hammer, creating a small indentation or dimple on the surface. To create the dimple, the surface of the material must yield in tension. Below the surface, the material tries to restore its original shape, thereby producing below the dimple, a hemisphere of cold-worked material highly stressed in compression.
Deburring is the process of removing sharp burrs to smooth both large and small part edges. Deburring components allows for these components to be safely handled and functional. We utilize both vibratory and tumble deburring processes. Vibratory and tumble deburring are mass finishing processes in which parts to be finished are placed in a vibratory machine, usually with abrasive media, water and compound. Action or movement of the machine causes the media to press and rub against part surfaces, edges and corners to alter surface characteristics. The compound emulsifies the soils and carries them away from the parts.