Our cabinet knobs are cast either in silicon bronze or 316 stainless steel and viewers will know that both are exceptionally durable rust resistant and quite beautiful alloys so why then would we opt to have an order of orchid knobs nickel plated?
Nickel is a metallic element and is one of the elements present in 316 stainless steel. Nickel has a silvery white appearance that is not dissimilar to stainless steel and when both are finished to a brushed satin luster the visual difference is minimal. Why then would we choose to nickel plate a bronze cabinet knob rather than cast it 316 stainless steel? The answer lies in the hardness of 316 steel which makes it a much more difficult alloy to machine and polish and in the subtle difference in appearance of nickel versus stainless steel.
The custom orchid cabinet pulls that have been described in earlier posts were cast in bronze which being a softer more malleable alloy allowed the nooks and crevices of these detailed pieces to be buffed and brushed to remove scratches and imperfections. If the pieces had been cast in 316 stainless steel the hardness of the steel would have made this process far more labor intensive. As the orchids are being installed in a room with several nickel fixtures, we opted to nickel plated so that the pieces would blend well.
F & H Plating is a valuable Los Angeles source and one well known in the interior design and jewelry industries for their gold, silver, nickel, and copper plating. Ron, the founder of F & H is a knowledgeable mine of information on plating techniques and his site describes the electroplating process. We were seeking a satin finish for our orchid pulls, so we buffed and refined the castings to give them a soft sheen. F & H then chemically cleaned the bronze orchids to remove any contaminants, gently re-buffed them back to their satin luster and dipped them in nickel solution which when electrically charged caused the nickel content to bond with the surface of the bronze. Once dried the pieces were very gently buffed to the desired luster and ready to install
Nickel electroplating is a useful process if you have a metal that is prone to rust as even a thin layer of nickel will improve the rust resistance of the base metal.