Second plating cycle for Brompton bikes

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UK-owned Brompton Bicycle has partnered with specialist coatings supplier Surface Technology for the second time to produce 1,300 of its special Nickel Edition bikes.

This follows last year's instant sell-out of the bikes, which are electroless nickel plated by Surface Technology, part of Norman Hay plc, at Brompton's Leeds facility.

Mo Rahnama, design operations manager at Brompton, said: “Brompton had talked for some years about creating a specialist nickel version but came up against a number of technical challenges postponing the development. Surface Technology was the obvious partner for the project due to their extensive knowledge and understanding of industrial coatings and their ability to research and test a unique solution for our product.”

This year, the two companies have worked together to increase efficiencies in the manufacturing process, meaning Brompton Bicycle has been able to extend the range, offering varying heights of handle bars for different riding styles.

The technical teams at Surface Technology and Brompton identified ways to reduce the amount of masking time required, while ensuring the tolerances of the various component mounting points within the frame were maintained. As a result, Brompton ensured mounting point holes were machined larger in the fabrication process to allow correct assembly from the plated parts.

To enhance the quality of output the Brompton bikes were salt spray tested. The frames were placed in a secure chamber and sprayed in a climatic environment for more than 200 hours to accelerate the corrosion process. Brompton stated they were checked and photographed every day and at the end of the testing the frames were cleaned back to their original nickel coating with no sign of corrosion damage.

Find out more about Brompton here

www.surfacetechnology.co.uk