Hi,
Does anyone have any idea which brand of cuffs were the first to be plated.
I'm sure nickel plating came before chrome but any idea of dates would be a help.
I searched on the web and found a wide range of dates given for the intoduction of chrome plating in manufacturing. Does anyone have any info.
Thanks,
RMP
http://electrochem.cwru.edu/ed/encycl/a ... roplat.htm
History
Before continuing with more detailed discussion of the subject at hand, a brief history of electroplating will be presented. The early history of electroplating may be traced back to around 1800. A university professor, or in modern terms: a chemist, Luigi Brugnatelli is considered as the first person to apply electrodeposition process to electroplate gold. Brugnatelli was a friend of Allisandro Volta (after whom the electric unit "volt" has been named) who had just a short time before discovered the chemical principles that would make possible the development of "voltaic" electrical cells. Volta's first actual demonstration of that was called "Voltaic Pile". As a consequence of this development, Brugnatelli's early work using voltaic electricity enabled him to experiment with various plating solutions. By 1805 he had refined his process enough to plate a fine layer of gold over large silver metal objects. He wrote in a letter to the Belgian Journal of Physics and Chemistry (later reprinted in Britain), which reads:
"I have lately gilt in a complete manner two large silver medals, by bringing them into communication by means of a steel wire, with a negative pole of a voltaic pile, and keeping them one after the other immersed in ammoniuret of gold newly made and well saturated".
Unfortunately for Brugnatelli, a disagreement or falling out with the French Academy of Sciences, the leading scientific body of Europe at the time, prevented Brugnatelli's work from being published in the scientific journals of his day. His work remained largely unknown outside of his native Italy except for a small group of associates. By 1839, however, scientist in Britain as well as in Russia had independently devised metal deposition processes similar to those of Brugnatelli's for copper electroplating of printing press plates. By 1840, this discovery was adapted and refined by Henry and George Elkington of Birmingham, England for gold and silver plating. Collaborating with their partner John Wright and using formulae developed by the latter for potassium cyanide plating baths, the Elkingtons were able to have the first viable patents for gold and silver electroplating issued on their name. From Great Britain the electroplating process for gold and silver quickly spread throughout the rest of Europe and later to the United States.
With the burgeoning knowledge and understanding of the subject of electrochemistry and its importance in understanding the processes of "electrodeposition" came the ability to deposit other metals. By the 1850's electroplating methods of bright nickel, brass, tin, and zinc were commercialized and were applied for engineering and specific commercial purposes. In time, the industrial age and financial capital had expanded from Great Britain to the rest of the world. As a result, electrodeposition processes were expanding in scope and found more and more usage in the production of a variety of goods and services. While this expansion was taking place, no significant scientific discoveries were made until the emergence of the electronic industry in the mid forties of the last century. The only exception to this were improvements made to direct current power supplies which were/are used instead of batteries. Thus it is said that the years from 1870 to 1940 were a quiet period as far as electroplating was concerned, significant only in gradual improvement in larger scale manufacturing processes, anodic and cathodic reaction principles and plating bath formulae. During the later years of the forties, rediscovery of heavy gold plating for electronic components took place. In comparison to that, during the mid to later fifties the usage of new and more "user friendly" plating baths based on acid formulae (rather than strongly poisonous cyanide based ones) were developed and introduced for large scale commercial use. In closing this brief historic summary one is to note that today a number of regulatory laws (enacted mainly in the nineteen-seventies), for instance concerning waste water emission and waste disposal, set the tone/direction for the electrodeposition/electroplating industry for the next thirty years.
