Hello everyone, in this post I will share with you about copper zipper alternative materials and stainless steel zipper plating.
Copper is one of the most commonly used materials on zippers, specifically:
Red copper is copper as the main alloying element, to which a small amount of tin, zinc, lead and other elements are added. Since red copper is rich in copper elements, it has excellent electrical and thermal conductivity.
Brass is a copper alloy composed of copper and zinc as the main elements. Brass not only has a certain electrical conductivity and thermal conductivity, but also has excellent cutting performance and good corrosion resistance.
The hardness of red copper is between HB90120, while the hardness of brass is between HB70100. In terms of hardness, red copper is more resistant to wear than brass.
As the price of copper is getting more and more expensive, many zipper manufacturers are looking for different materials to replace copper. Currently the more used ones are aluminum, stainless steel and titanium. The characteristics of these three materials are as follows:
Titanium alloy is not very suitable for zippers. Although titanium alloy has the advantages of high strength and corrosion resistance, it also has some shortcomings.
On the one hand, titanium alloy is relatively costly, and using it to make zippers will increase the overall cost of zippers significantly;
On the other hand, titanium alloy is relatively difficult to be processed into the fine structure required for zippers, and it may not be as smooth and flexible in the zipper opening and closing process as some materials specially used for zippers.
Aluminum can be used for zippers to a certain extent. Aluminum has the advantages of low density, high strength and good corrosion resistance, but the hardness may not be particularly high, and may be prone to deformation or wear in the process of long-term use and frequent opening and closing.
Stainless steel, with a density generally between 7.75g/cm³ and 8.0g/cm³, is suitable for zippers. It has the advantages of high strength, good corrosion resistance and low cost, but there are some shortcomings, such as heavier and more difficult to process.
In addition, the color choice of stainless steel zipper is relatively less, if you need to change the color, you will usually use the way of oiling on the surface layer for processing, but this processing will make the color fall out after about 300500 round trips.
Stainless steel zipper at present we have three kinds to choose from, the first is 430 stainless steel, with relatively strong magnetism; the second is 304 stainless steel, with weak magnetism; the third special SS stainless steel, to achieve non-magnetic effect;
At present, there are fewer people who can achieve very stable and beautiful stainless steel zipper plating. People use more lattice frame oil to change the color of stainless steel.
At present, our company is also studying how to make the stainless steel zipper more stable and beautiful by plating. Probably in these few months, if we have the latest R&D result, we will share it with you.
Article from: zippermachine