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geekhack Projects => Making Stuff Together! => Topic started by: Mandolin on Sun, 02 June 2013, 21:34:14

Title: Galvanizing Plastic
Post by: Mandolin on Sun, 02 June 2013, 21:34:14

Somebody has done it? post your pics please

I read that there are two popular methods. One is using an adhesive (primer) to adhere metallic paint (must be made of metallic elemnets) first to the plastic, then do your regular galvanic cell process, the other one is through microretention/friction to roughen the surface and directly adhere the metallic oxides and then do the galvanic cell.

The thing is that maybe for keycaps there is no problem, but for large pieces there might some issues.


This is some plastic galvanized fence: (http://img.alibaba.com/photo/346441401/galvanized_plastic_garden_fence.jpg)

Title: Re: Galvanizing Plastic
Post by: mkawa on Mon, 03 June 2013, 14:58:27

the plating layer is usually quite thin though. is the objective to use relatively soft plastics with good shear and compressive strength but poor surface wear characteristics (hmm.. i'm beginning to see how this could be useful for keyboards...) in applications where you want better surface wear?

another interesting application: the thermal conductivity of a polymer with the wear characteristics of a metal?