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What about CHEMICAL
CONTAMINATION?
Typical chemical contamination
comes when you accidentally mix two, or more, chemicals.
This can happen with
any gold plating system from any supplier. No gold plating system is at more or
less of a risk of the chemical contamination.
Some of the times a person
accidentally mixes chemicals, by putting an electrode back into the WRONG
CONTAINER. Obviously, only the person doing the gold plating can control
that.
The accidental mixing results in rendering the chemicals
typically useless.
As a standard precaution, we
always recommend you close the tops of all of your chemical containers so you avoid a
SPILL or accidentally dripping one chemical into another as you cross over an open
container.
What is the real concern over
CHEMICAL CONTAMINATION in the brush plating industry? Very little, if any, as long as you
are careful.
It is appropriate to review the
gold plating process to the extent you are doing the gold plating on a chrome script or
emblem on a vehicle.
Typically, the piece is on the
side of a car and the chemicals run off.
We provide square bottomed
plastic garbage bags from an ACE Hardware store so your RUN OFF, runs off into the drain
pan.
What little goes into the drain
pan is RUN OFF, not reusable chemicals.
Whatever RUN OFF you have will
wind up being contaminated. However, this RUN OFF is a waste product, the largest majority
of which is a water base you let evaporate and dispose of properly.
The Gold Plating systems we
provide include chemicals and ON SITE WORK CONTAINERS. What you do it transfer some of
your chemicals from your CHEMICAL STORAGE CONTAINERS into the relatively small ON SITE
WORK CONTAINERS.
The only way you can contaminate
the small ON SITE WORK CONTAINERS is to put the wrong color coded wand and electrode with
a bootie (cloth electrode cover) into the wrong ON SITE WORK CONTAINER.
What happens if you do put
the wrong color coded wand and electrode with a bootie into the wrong ON SITE WORK
CONTAINER?
Chrome Stripper and Nickel
Activator are corrosives. If you mix either of these you will simply lose the relatively
small dollar value of the chemicals. You will lose, probably, several dollars.
Nickel Activator is an ACID,
mixing an ACID with the cyanide based gold plating solution can release HYDROGEN CYANIDE
GAS. In a high concentration, that is the kind of gas that kills people.
We have ALWAYS maintained that
SAFETY is the first item in any operation. And, as you read our detailed Gold Plating
Manual, you will see exactly how we deal with this. In a thumbnail, if you are not using a
chemical at that moment, close the lid, screw the top back on, or do whatever you have to
do to close the container.
CLOSED CONTAINERS CAN NOT
CONTAMINATE
Accidental mixing of the wrong
chemicals can be hazardous to your health, which includes common, everyday household
cleaning chemicals!
As an example, in TANK PLATING,
there are RINSE TANKS set up after each plating process tank.
A chrome stripper tank and a
rinse tank.
A nickel activating tank and a
rinse tank.
A gold plating tank and a rinse
tank.
The reason for the rinse tank(s)
is to simply rinse off the part, or parts, of the previous chemical.
Chemical tanks require
agitation, filtration and periodic laboratory testing to maintain proper chemistry in the
tanks.
The previous chemical that was
on the part, or parts, before it gets to the rinse tank is commonly called DRAG OUT. And,
on a rare occasion when platers get busy, and or do a volume of work, the pieces that come
out of a rinse tank step may still have some residue drag out of the previous chemical
that goes into the next chemical tank. In practice, this is a rare occasion. The reason is
simple. COSTS. A brush plater has a very small amount of money tied up in chemicals. Tank
platers have far larger tanks. At a minimum, a person doing gold plating on one wheel at a
time uses 6 of the 33 gallon size tanks. I know of tanks that hold hundreds of gallons.
Clearly, they do not want to have chemical contamination. And, they test the quality of
the chemicals in the tanks often.
Clearly, mixing an ACID with the
cyanide based gold plating solution can release HYDROGEN CYANIDE GAS. That is the kind of
gas that kills people. Accidental mixing of the wrong chemicals can be hazardous to your
health. This includes common, everyday household cleaning chemicals!
To receive more information, please contact:
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