A: The easiest way to cut costs is by planning. When you plan in advance, you can avoid paying the high cost associated with expediting and faster shipping. When building a mold, allow tolerance for plating so that no masking is needed when it’s time to apply a coating. If your mold is already built and there’s no tolerance, consider having us plate the whole part, then use your in-house grinder to grind the sides back to fit. That method can be more economical and have a faster turn around.

A: The more paperwork and back-and-forth, the more time your job will take. The process is more efficient if we get the following upfront from you: purchase order, shipping info (including address, method and any account number) as well as detailed prints or instructions. If anything is unclear or incomplete, we will need to call you to verify, which slows the process.

A: There are two reasons. First, dissimilar metals have different pretreatments for plating. The treatment for one base material might harm the other, so they have to be run separately. Second, the plating process involves liquids that will get trapped in seams and leak out later, causing staining, peeling and other problems.