weird honeycomb pattern after plating

[rcvinyl]

Hi Everyone
After being sent for plating, this kind of honeycomb pattern appeared on the outside of the lacquer. Has this happened to anyone? Although it is not very common, it happened once last year and once this year.

[Aussie0zborn]

Does this same pattern show up on the stamper?

[misjah]

Looks like sparking

[rcvinyl]

yes show up on the stamper as well, only appear on the lead in area

[Aussie0zborn]

Looks like “chicken feet” or “worms”. These usually show up in the lead-out groove area. It’s caused by organic impurities in the galvanic plating solution. A good carbon treatment will resolve that.

[Yasiek]

In addition to the organic contaminants you might suspect as a matter of course, check for two other things:
- do you have the right proportions of silver nitrate to reducer in the silvering gun (often, when there is too little silver nitrate, such things happen, although these traces are then much thinner - like a spider's web). In your photo you can see a dull glow on the matrix - perhaps it is the result of the silvering itself and wrong proportions in the gun as well as insufficient preparation of the laquer surface before silvering (the laquer was not sufficiently washed with a brush)... or laquer was to fresh.
- try to set a more aggressive initial current ramp, e.g. start with 20A, and step up to 40A in 6 minutes. You can test other ramps, even more aggressive ones (our guys started at 40A and it was ok), experiment, it may work differently for you.
The above helped us and the problem practically disappeared, now it only appears on 10" laquers (probably different current density and here you would have to work on the current ramp itself).

[mossboss]

Friendly worms! 100% Never had the problem in Australia after many 1000's of stampers mothers, than in my plant in the UK it was a common occurrence, checking other very experienced electroformers they suggested all kinds of solutions that none made sense, Lo and behold it happened in the USA plant as well when running that, than to add insult it appeared in our plant in Melbourne, while involved in the plant in Italy NEVER, and to this day checking often they dont even know what it is
So when someone out there provides a reasonable reason Ill stay on the sidelines
They just come and go no rhyme or reason you can do all manner of things to adjusting everything and anything from silvering to current to cleaning washing etc by the time you done all that they just disappear about as fast as they appeared
After all the years I have been involved and having gone through at least in Melbourne over 10,000 titles that's about 40-50 thousand pieces of metal work mothers and stampers I am still bewildered as to why how and when these Friendly worms as the 30 year veterans called them in the UK appear and why they disappear I can say that every suggestion here has been applied in many cases, once we did nothing and they just went away we plated used lacquers for a day or two than the went, go figure, One very obvious place they appear is always in the uncut area of the lacquer in other words the areas where the material has not been disturbed, which indicates some kind of interaction with the material itself rather than any part of process used, than it is not a common occurrence so that's out of the window
So Ill standby
Best

[andybee]

this called chicken feet are described in several
galvanic manuals, can not remember where...
as far as I remember having this was from
mixing old silvering (from day before) with fresh
silvering solution for two weeks =8)

[mossboss]

Yeah! We mix silver every day for the day. Never use silver solution that’s left over
It goes to the recycling container
Chicken feet, worms, call them whatever you want, no logical explanation or reason for them to be there.
That’s our experience anyway mmmm, if you get them and find a valid reason why, than get rid of them by deliberate action I love to know.
Best

[montalbano]

This doesn't look like a plating issue but rather like a silvering issue. Most likely a "not so good" reaction.
It looks like the silver film is weak, so it tends to crack where there ain't close grooves which stop it from cracking.
But the problem is not confined to that area, IMHO: in the picture you attached, you can see a rather opaque surface all over the whole lacquer, meaning that the reticulate of silver is not very well formed. We have got a similar problem 3 years ago.
My suggestions:
- leave lacquers taking some fresh, possibly fairly hot, air before using them, some days unsealed into their open box will be enough;
- use a performing product to degrease lacquers: with Transco lacquers, natural, "soft" products like saponine or quinilla extract were a great solution, but with these new, fresh-made lacquers, they would barely work. You have to use a concentrate, industrial cleaning product containing some "great classics" of the deep cleaning like NaOH, just to name one;
- when you prepare the AgNO3 solution, pour some extra NH3 on top of it, until the solution gets 100% transparent. NH3 is always good in the AgNO3 line, also when you wanna clean up your pipes etc., as it gets rid of many oxyds - which you obviously do not want;
- chemical reactions, even when simple and fast like this one, have a range of temperatures they have to work within. Be sure to work around 24-28°C for best results. You can still achieve good results down to less than 20°C, but it will take more time, it will obviously be more expensive, and you will have to be more careful;
- there is also a new trend here in Italy: to use tannins as catalyzing agents of the chemical reaction between AgNO3 and the reducer. This helps a lot the adherence and strength of the silver film during preplating, and the silver color is really ... white! If you are in struggle with the traditional method, this solution might help you quite a lot, because it makes everything easier. We don't always use these tannins, however I've tried them several times and I have to say that - along with the excellent visual results - they are harmless either for the lacquer itself and for the rest of the galvanic installation. They are easy to prepare, say 5g/l of distilled water, just rinse your silvered lacquer very well (as you normally do) right after silvering and before pre-plating, and that's it.
Ciao