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Press and Trade Shows: Technical
Papers
High Reliability
Surface Finishing of Critical Components for Smart Weapons
and Safe Aircraft
by Marty Borruso
ABSTRACT:
Surface finishing technology plays a key role in sophisticated
weapons systems-both offensive and defensive- and plating
quality can have a major impact upon shelf life and field
performance of this high tech hardware. Here's an interesting
vignette about a small finishing shop in Brooklyn that has
carved its niche in the area of high tech specification plating.
FULL TEXT:
Many man hours of engineering talent have gone into the developement,
fabrication and testing of specific plating systems to achieve
either corrosion resistance, high temperature solderability,
low electrical loss, or high infrared reflectivity, among
others for application in sophisticated weapons systems. Frequently,
more than one of these engineering functions will apply to
the same part. The full payback of this engineering effort
requires not only technical know-how on the part of the plater,
but a dedicated quality philosophy as well.
One of the companies consistently "Pushing
the envelope" in the development and production of some
of the more critical plating procedures is Epner Technology
Incorporated (ETI), a small contract job shop in Brooklyn,
NY. ETI evolved from small jewelry and giftware platin business
founded in 1910 to a high tech specification plating company
with a worldwide customer list.
In 1938, Cohan-Epner, as the company was
then known, was one of the first suppliers of silver plating
for microwave "plumbing" for the earliest radar
systems, one of many defense-related programs. In those days
plating blister-free deposits on aluminum was a constant challenge.
The company pioneered a procedure of brass plating over an
aluminum substrate prior to copper plating.
ETI has aggressively marketed its surface
finishing capabilities. In 1972, its booth at the Design Engineering
Show at McCormick Place in Chicago caught the eye of an engineer
from a Fortune 500 company. He asked if the company could
consistently polish, nickel and gold plate an aluminum extrusion
to withstand 450 'F without blistering.(The part was the extruded
infrared fusing reflector on a large volume copier.) The gold
plate had to meet critical reflectivity (then 91 percent at
.7 microns) and hardness specs.
A long research program aided by the use
of an infrared spectrophotometer produced a product of such
quality that ETI was the sole supplier of this part for some
10 years, and hundreds of thousands of parts. When these copiers
were eventually recalled, ETI's refining division recovered
and returned hundreds of thousands of dollars in gold to the
company. This relationship triggered a growing awareness on
the part of ETI's management of the changing world of plating
quality. It was the process that made a good part, not the
inspector.
David Epner, president of ETI, said, "In
the early days we found it hard to bite the up-front financial
bullet that setting up the right process often required. The
ongoing cost of strip and replate and the cost of a team of
so-called inspectors (who were really sorting) seemed less
painful than writing a check for the initial cost needed to
install a reject-free process.
"SPC was another eye opener.
On one long-running production job, five so-called inspectors
were replaced by one person who actually inspected 20 pieces
per hour, logged the results on an X bar R Chart, monitored
the trend and was thrilled by her power to halt production
if need be. Oh, yes, gold use was reduced by 30 percent."
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