Able Electropolishing on Kilbourn Avenue, Chicago, has electropolished precision metal parts since its founding in 1954. The facility is ISO 13485 quality certified for medial parts, as well as ISO 9001 quality certified. It can electropolish anywhere from 1 to 1 million parts, and to get started and demonstrate the quality, Able Electropolishing will electropolish the first part for free.
Able Electropolishing offers the Electropolishing finishing process that reduces corrosion, and removes microscopic imperfections, such as microburrs, microcracks, heat tint, free iron, stains, oxide scale and other surface defects on the part, according to Able Electropolishing’s website.
Electropolishing, sometimes called electrochemical polishing or electrofinishing, and even electrolyte polishing, works in a chemical and electrical bath by removing a precise and very thin outer layer of the material. The amount of material removed can be as much 3,000-inch or as little as 2/10,000-inch, depending on the alloy used. It works on Stainless Steel in the 200 and 300 and 400 series. It works on aluminum, brass, copper, nickel, tungsten, niobium. It works on Hastelloy, Molybdenum, Nitinol, Stainless Steel precipitating hardening grade, and others.
If a potential customer wonders what electropolishing will do to their part, Able Electropolishing will electropolish one part for free, and pay for the shipping. “Samples are processed within 24-48 hours.”
In addition to providing “30 times more corrosion resistance than passivation, electropolishing eliminates the need for or reduces the need for hand-deburring and polishing, tumbling and vibra finishing, shot peening, blasting, harperizing,” the website said. Electropolishing provides a cosmetic finish useful for medical surgical devices because they are clean, safe, and biocompatible, more durable and longer-lasting. For aerospace customers, Able Electropolishing said its metal finishing processes improves fatigue-resistance for metal parts, making them more stress resistant and corrosion resistant.
Able Electropolishing said in a white paper published on its site, “Electropolishing for Significantly Improved Corrosion Resistance,” that, “While passivation is a chemical process used to restore contaminated stainless steel to original specifications, testing has shown that electropolishing leaves metal parts with 30x more corrosion resistance than passivation alone.”
The paper then said, “Electropolishing, which is effective within extremely tight tolerances, can remove corrosion from critical metal parts whose size and structure eliminates the option of mechanical polishing,” followed by, “Electropolishing provides superior results and corrosion resistance for other metal alloys as well, retarding the corrosive properties of copper, brass, aluminum, and carbon steels.”
About 220 workers and 15 robots, running 24 hours a day five days a week run the electropolishing process in the company’s 45,000-square-foot facility, using a chemical bath and electric current to remove surface defects. The process removes metal ions, cleaning the parts, which workers then rinse clean.