Helloooooo.

If you electroplate a plastic with a metal, then the plastic is not in play. It has been covered by metal. You are not anodizing plastic, you are anodizing METAL.

Can't imagine why you would want to do this...................................

Thank you, Iynlynch.

the reason is to decorate the plastics substrate for electronic appliance, to have anodizing look and finishing for plastics substrate instead of metal, reduction in cost and weight of the product.

regards,

Surface

Why don't you just paint the knob. Almost every electronic, hand held and otherwise, product on the planet is painted.

Al is hard to plate as there are no aqueous solvents. It is plated out of solution via the Hall process in molten cryolite, so your plating substrate would need to reist that. Plastic will not.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hall-H%C3%A9roult_process

There are places that can plasma spray metals in a reducing plasma. Google that and see if you can find someone.

If you can get it vacuum deposited or flame sprayed with aluminum, then it can be anodized, but make sure you have the thickness to anodize it.

Thank you Aurizon,

Hi! I was working for Ericsson a few years ago and we got our cell phone fronts covered inside with aluminum. I'm not familiar with the prosess, but it was molten metal sprayed on plastic. Don't remember the name of the company, but it was in Brummundal, Norway. To anodize you need "fresh" aluminum and the prosess is to add oxigen to the surface to get a hard layer that is thicker than what you'll get when leaving it to nature. I guess when putting on hot aluminum you'll get a natural oxide layer, which need to be stripped before anodizing. After anodizing you may put on any color you like using dye for fabrics.

TCB