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Re: New R13 plating flaking

Author: Chris P
Date: 2007-07-03 14:35

Nickel plate is applied very thinly and will wear out much quicker than silver plate (depending on how thickly the silver is). Nickel plate is usually an undercoat to silver plate as it provides a very smooth surface (in molecular terms) for silver to adhere to.

I've seen a lot of nickel plated Buffets where the plating has discoloured or even worn through on the throat G#, speaker key, Ab/Eb and F/C keys as well as the LH lever touches and rings within a year of being bought.

Some Leblanc clarinets have very thick nickel plate - I worked on a Noblet alto clarinet to do a keywork alteration as the player needed the side Eb/Bb key touch to point south - so I assumed it'd be an easy job of unsoldering the key touch and (with a bit of modification) turn it through 90°. But when it came to unsoldering it, the nickel plating was so thick it started bubbling with the heat. So when I took the touchpiece off, filed it up and soldered it back I had to tidy it up. As the plating was thick, files just skated over it without removing anything so I had to use diamond files instead to cut through the nickel so I could paper it up all smooth. Under the nickel was a thick layer of copper as well, so they really went to town on the plating.

But generally nickel plate is applied to a thickness of less than 10 microns - sometimes less than 5 microns so it will wear out easily. The problem is that nickel plate is very hard, and will blunt tools easily which is why it's applied thinly. At one time the plating done for Howarth had a thick layer of nickel under the silver (the pllaters applied twice the thickness of nickel), and this caused grief for us finishers as the silver would come off the ends of key barrels easily, but as soon as the fraising tool made contact with the nickel, it wouldn't cut through. Adding more pressure just flared the ends of the key barrels and blunted the barrel fraises, and the extra nickel also blunted reamers and taps so in general, it made fitting keys and adjusting screws a headache.

Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.

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New R13 plating flaking new

bmcgar

2007-07-03 04:18