When Gold Won't Stick

The substrate problem that's costing you orders

We supply plating solutions to job shops and jewellery manufacturers across India. So when it’s not shop talk, the stories are usually about jobs that went sideways, orders that got refused, customers who never came back.

One pattern, it's not about plating skill.

It's about substrates.

📞 THE REJECTION CALL

A plater in Mumbai shared this: "Customer ne bronze buckles bheje. Humne gold kiya. Teen hafte baad wapas aaye, plating utar rahi thi."

Same story from a watch component supplier in Bangalore. Stainless steel parts. Beautiful gold finish. Peeling within a month.

Different shops, different cities, different substrates. Same problem: adhesion failure.

🔬 WHY SOME SUBSTRATES FIGHT BACK

Standard gold baths work beautifully on silver, copper, brass. The chemistry is designed for them.

But bronze, stainless steel, nickel alloys with tin, zinc, or iron? That's a different story:

• Bronze forms complex oxide layers that resist bonding

• Stainless steel has a passive chromium oxide layer, it's literally designed to resist surface reactions

• Nickel alloys with Sn/Zn/Fe create surface contamination that blocks adhesion

Your finish coat can be perfect. But if the first layer doesn't bond, nothing holds.

🚫 THE ORDERS YOU'RE REFUSING

Here's what this actually costs you:

• Fashion hardware in bronze, buckles, buttons, decorative pieces. Growing market.

• Watch components in stainless, cases, links, clasps. High-margin work.

• Mixed-metal orders, the pieces that come in batches, different alloys, same deadline.

Every 'we don't do bronze' is revenue walking out the door.

✨ WHAT ACTUALLY SOLVES THIS: GFX1

GFX1 is a gold strike solution, not a finish coat. It's the adhesion layer that makes subsequent plating possible on difficult substrates.

The key is the chemistry:

✓ Strongly Acidic (pH 1.0-1.5) - aggressive enough to break down oxide layers on stainless steel

✓ Ready-to-Use - no mixing, no concentration calculations. Pour and plate.

✓ Thin Strike Layer (0.02-0.20 µm) - just enough for adhesion, you're not wasting gold

✓ True 24kt Yellow (99.7% purity) - the strike layer looks right even before finish coat

✓ 2-Year Shelf Life - it's there when you need it, even for occasional orders

Designed for baths up to 5 litres. Use it until exhausted, no replenishment needed.

📈 WHAT ACTUALLY CHANGES

• Bronze components become possible, adhesion that holds

• Stainless steel orders, you can say yes

• Returns drop, finish stays put

• Mixed orders, one strike bath handles the problem pieces

⚠️ WHAT THIS WON'T FIX

What GFX1 is and isn't.

It's a strike layer, not a finishing solution. You still need your regular gold bath for the final appearance. GFX1 creates the foundation that makes subsequent plating stick.

And it's designed for smaller operations, baths up to 5 litres. Large industrial lines running 50L+ need different solutions.

If you're only working silver, copper, brass? Your standard bath is probably fine. Yeh solution un ke liye hai jo problem substrates se ladh rahe hain.

💬 TURNING DOWN BRONZE OR STAINLESS ORDERS?

If adhesion problems are costing you business, let's talk. 15-minute call to understand your substrate mix. No pitch, just figuring out if this solves your specific problem.

Reach out: help@preciousalloy.com | +91 22 6101 4444

‍