HOUSTON ¯ As the leader in aviation decorative plating, HighTech Finishing is committed to developing new plating finishes as well as a variety of options to meet the needs of its varied clients. Recently, HighTech Finishing expanded its facility and added 15 new tanks to enable the company to offer plating on plastic.
"Many aviation manufacturers are employing new methods to decrease aircraft weight and using plastic can be one of the options," explained Rick Niefield, vice president of marketing at HighTech. "With these new plastic components comes a need for decorative plating that will provide the same look and durability as plating on metal components. With our recent processing line expansion, HighTech can now plate virtually all interior items made of plastic."
There are a variety of plastic substrates that HighTech can plate but the most common is those made of ABS-type material. HighTech acid etches each part for a stronger adhesion rather than using a sandblast method that may damage intricate aviation parts.
This fall, HighTech also enhanced its standard finishes with a micro-porous chrome. This chrome is visually similar to decorative chrome but on the molecular level, micro-porous chrome has tighter pores that provide added corrosion resistance. This finish is an excellent choice for exterior decorative parts such as handrails and there is no additional cost or turn time for micro-porous chrome.
For more than 25 years, HighTech Finishing has exclusively served the aviation industry, supplying superior-quality decorative metal plating for interior hardware and trim parts for business and head-of-state aircraft. From design implementation to zero-defect quality production, HighTech Finishing offers more than 130 standard finishes and unlimited custom-matching capabilities and has the largest available processing capacity in the aviation market. HighTech is the only aviation decorative plating supplier to have received both the FAA Part 145 Repair Station and ISO9001/AS9100 quality management system certification designations.
For more information, call HighTech at 800-949-0124 or visit them on the Web at www.htf.net.
