THE LOCKSPRAY-GOLD PROCESS.
Davide Levy · Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) · 1966
The LOCKSPRAY-GOLD (Registered trademark of Lockheed Aircraft Corp.) process is a new method for plating gold with the use of conventional spray guns. It is a chemical reduction process in which separate aqueous solutions of a complex gold salt and a chemical reductant are sprayed simultaneously at ambient temperature onto the article to be coated. Plating conditions have been designed so that a dense continuous gold film is formed by an autocatalytic deposition mechanism. The coatings produced are high purity gold. The process can be used to deposit gold on almost any solid material including plastics, glass, metals, and ceramics. Appearance of the gold depends on the surface roughness of the substrate. The specular reflectivity of a mirror is obtained when plating on smooth or polished surfaces. Gold deposited on a rough surface exhibits a dull or matte appearance.