Critical metal parts are expensive, delicate, and something you don’t want to replace until you absolutely have to.
So how do we protect them for as long as possible? Specialty masking.
For those instances when you don’t want to coat the entire exterior, a traditional liquid or powder coating is no longer an option. Masking – the act of covering a specific area of the part with specialized tape and adhesive – becomes the best option.
The top two methods for masking metal parts are hand-cut masks and printed sheet masks. While hand-cut masks are time-consuming and prone to error and injury, custom sheet masking allows for precise customization among other benefits:
- Improve the consistency in your finished product
- Reduce waste and loss for products during finishing and treatment work
- Reduce customer issues and complaints
- Remove the threat of worker injury
However, masking for surface finishing presents many challenges. Solving these challenges means 1) choosing the right type of material for your mask and 2) gaining an understanding of common masking issues and their solutions.
What Is Metal Part Masking?
Essentially, masking your metal parts prevents targeted areas of a part from being electroplated, maintaining that object’s integrity and function. By masking specific areas, you ensure the finishing material only goes where you want it to.
We collected four reasons you may want to consider masking your metal parts:
You want to apply a logo or design.
Some manufacturers decide to add a logo or identifier to the part and to preserve the design’s integrity, masking is required. By masking that area during the plating process, you can easily protect the applied design.
You need to preserve electrical conduction.
For example, in cases where silver plating is used, anodizing (coating for metal specifically) of the metal can mask as an insulator. By allowing the plating to reach electrical contacts, this can stop the piece from working correctly. Masking prevents this from happening.
You need to preserve screw threading.
Threading is precise and crucial to the final part of the production process. Threading allows parts to be screwed together, and coating can change these dimensions, especially when the finishing process is being used to increase the thickness of the rest of the part. Masking ensures threads remain unchanged.
You need to treat a metal part with a mix of coating processes.
Some parts require complex coatings to achieve a higher level of performance, like those within the aerospace industry. This involves different layers of finish, and sometimes only certain layers of finish are put on certain areas of the part. Thus, some parts may be masked later in the process, after receiving the specified layer of finish. It all depends on the purpose of the part, the exact material makeup of the material, and the needs of the project.
Metal Masking Applications
Masking is commonly used in these applications:
- During dry and wet processes
- During chem film, black oxide, or phosphate coatings
- To limit anodic coatings to specific areas or to apply multiple coatings over the same part
- Achieving achieve selective dimensional changes and shapes on titanium or aluminum
Get Free Custom Mask Samples
AIM develops custom tape masking to suit the needs of our customers and offers unmatched customer service. Finishing companies across the nation have looked to AIM since 2008 to improve the quality of their finished products, eliminate re-work, and reduce lead times.
Send us a request for a sample sheet of masks along with your part specifications, and we will return a sample sheet of custom masks at no charge.
