From “OnTheLine,” a podcast* from Products Finishing: The main topic is the industry’s response to regulations to transition existing hexavalent chrome to trivalent chromium. In this podcast, Josh Fish, technical director for PAVCO, INC. talks the implications to finishers of the switch to trivalent chrome.
Hexavalent chromium is very forgiving. Trivalent chromium needs more tending: filtering, more babysitting, ion exchange is needed to manage metal contaminants, etc… But the biggest problem of the perceived inferior quality. It just doesn’t plate as well.
Which is leading to a lot of turmoil, not only in the plating industry, which, during this transition time, means most shop floors need to run 2 lines in parallel, but also in the plating customer community. Many customers are questioning whether plating is even the right finish! Josh nervously laughed when recounting these conversations, and it seems many customers seem to be thinking about abandoning plating entirely.
Powder coating is looking like a cheap and viable alternative. Could powder coating take over a substantial part of the plating market???
(*Not to be confused with On The Line, a podcast about fishing and hunting. Although they probably have a lot of subscriber overlap.)