In our furniture, we can see a lot of furniture hardware in plating finishing, whatever in your antique furniture or your modern fashion furniture.

Such as antique bronze furniture handle

 

 

 

 

Antique copper cabinet knob,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gold plated furniture cabinet knob,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chrome plated crystal closet knob,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pewter plated cabinet drawer knob,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nickel plated furniture door pull,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Plating finishing is electro plating, also known as galvanization.

Electroplating is an electro-chemical process, but also a oxidized reduction process.

Long story short, the basic process of galvanization is immersing in a solution of a metal salt as a cathode, a metal plate as an anode, after connecting electricity power there will has chemical reaction to deposit desired coating on the surface.

 

Today we are going to learn some basic knowledge of plated finishing.

1: Purpose of electro plating on furniture hardware.

There are majorly two purposes to do such a finishing on handles and knob in our furniture,

A: Anti rusting.

When you have your furniture handle plated, it has a metal plated layer, and it has the function to avoid your handle and knob rusted, this is the functional aspect of galvanization.

B: Decoration purpose.

I have no doubt you saw furniture handle and cabinet knob in gold plated, silver plated, antique plated, and mirror finishing chrome plated.

They are very nice, and luxury design, right?

 

2: Type of electro plating of furniture handle and cabinet knob.

There are many type of galvanization with different color and surface appearance.

A:Copper plating.

It is also known as antique finishing, and there are two color.

Antique bronze cabinet knob, and antique copper drawer knob.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

B: Gold plating.

It is really a very shinning color.

With no doubt, it really is real gold, no kidding.

Gold plated handle, diamond handle

 

 

 

C: Silver plating.

It is similar to gold plated.

It is real silver, no joking.

 

D: Chrome plated.

Oh, that is my most likely finishing.

And from my marketing experience in U.S.A and European,

Chrome plated furniture handle and knob are really hot items in these market.

Well, don’t you know that chrome plate has many types?

According to the color of chrome plated finishing, it could be mirror finishing (bright chrome plating), matte chrome plating (such as pearl chrome plating, a color like pearl

Chrome plated furniture handle, pearl chrome plated door pull

 

 

 

 

 

E: Zinc plated.

I don’t see items in zinc plated handle and cabinet knob in furniture.

But lots of bolt and nuts, connecting joints, hex key, nail and screws are in white zinc plated or bule zinc plated.

It is a very nice rusting proof method.

 

F: Nickel plated.

Nickel plated handle and knob are common in furniture, it is a little black.

I think it is popular because it looks like champagne.

Nickel plated furniture knob

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

G: Pewter plated.

Pewter plated handle gave a special feeling to us.

It is one type of antique finishing.

Pewter plated antique handle

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

H: Iron Plated.

Iron plated cabinet knob is a antique finishing as well.

Looks great in my opinion.

Iron plated classic cabinet knob

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3: What material will be electro plated handle and cabinet knobs.

Normally, we have plating finishing on zinc, aluminum and iron furniture handle.

Copper and stainless steel don’t need to, due to these two has self anti rusted feature.

In order to have a good appearance, some plastic item will also have electro plating  finishing, but price is not going to cheap, due to defect rate of plating plastic is always high.

 

4: Electro plating finishing type

According to the finishing method, galvanization could be

A: Electroplating,

B: Auto-catalytic plating, namely chemical plating, electroless plating.

C: Immersion plating..

 

5: Electro plating producing flow chart.

Different galvanization procession is different.

But there are some basic process in common.

A: Firstly, oil remove.

There is oil when you have a handle out from a die casting process, such as zinc die casting.

We need to remove oil firstly, otherwise the electro-plating coat is easy to fall off.

B: Secondly, tie handle and knob with wire.

C: Thirdly, clean the handle and knob in rinsing tank.

D: 4th, oil remove by electrolysis method.

E: 5th, clean the handle and knob in rinsing tank once again.

F: 6th,put it in an acid tank, it is a process to make the handle and knob shiny,

As you know, handle and knob out from mould is black.

G:7th , clean the handle and knob in rinsing tank once again.

H: 8th ,Electro plating.

I: 9th, clean the handle and knob in rinsing tank once again, or clean it in a tank with ultra sonic.

J: 10th, put it in a spin-drier to make it dry.

K: 11th, parching handle and knob if a toast oven, around 10 minutes.

L: 12th ,dismantle the wire tied on the furniture handle and knob.

M:13th, inspection.

N:Lastly, packaging.

 

As you can see, electro plating process need 14 steps, and all the process takes over 2 hours.

Why should we clean handle and knob so many times in different rinsing tank?

It is because the each step is different process, we should avoid polluting and chemical reaction between steps.

 

It is a long article about electro plating finishing on furniture handle, cabinet knob, furniture feets, and other decoration items.

It require experience and nice quality managed factory to produce high quality plated handle and knob.