JPH04136188A - Production of ornamental member - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To qualitatively stably and efficiently form a golden recessed character, etc., by coating the surface of a stainless steel ornamental member with a Ti-based film, etc., forming a recessed character, etc., on the desired part, then applying gold plating and further removing the film by etching. CONSTITUTION:The surface of the member is coated with a film of one kind between Ti and Cr by ion plating, a recessed character or pattern is formed by laser beam machining, and then a gold plating layer is provided by electroplating. The coating film is then etched and removed by dipping the member in a mixture of hydrofluoric and nitric acids and so on. In this case, the gold plating layer on the coating film is simultaneously lifted up and cleanly removed, and finally a recessed character, etc., having a golden appearance are left at the desired part of the member.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Industrial Application Field] The present invention relates to a method for manufacturing a decorative member using a stainless steel material to form a gold-colored concave pattern or letters on the surface of the decorative member.

[Summary of the invention]

The present invention provides a method for forming gold-colored concave patterns or letters on selectively predetermined portions of the surface of a decorative member made of stainless steel, in which a Ti-based or Cr-based coating is applied to the surface of the member by ion plating. After coating one type of metal, a concave pattern or letters are formed on selective predetermined areas by laser processing, then a gold plating layer is coated by electroplating, and the Ti-based or Cr-based film is peeled off and removed by etching. By this method, a concave pattern or letters having a desired gold color can be formed on the surface of a decorative member, and a decorative member with high decorative value can be provided with stable quality and at low cost.

[Conventional technology]

Conventional methods for forming gold-colored concave patterns or letters on the surface of decorative members using stainless steel include: ■ After etching into the desired pattern using a photo-etching method, a gold plating layer is coated, and then the resist is peeled off. How to form by.

■After patterning by printing method, a corrosion-resistant film such as a gold plating layer is coated, then etching is performed after removing the resist, and then a concave pattern is formed by peeling off and removing the corrosion-resistant film such as the gold plating layer, and then a gold plating layer is formed. A method in which the gold plating layer is coated, a resist is applied to the concave portions using a printing method, the unnecessary portions of the gold plating layer are peeled off, and the resist is further peeled off and removed.

It has been known.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] However, in order to form a gold-colored concave pattern or letters only on selective predetermined portions of a decorative member having a generally complex shape and a wide variety of surface finishes, the following drawbacks arise: be.

In method (2), when coating the entire surface with photoresist in advance, it is impossible to prevent liquid from pooling due to the complex shape, resulting in variations in film thickness, so a jig for positioning during exposure is required. It is difficult to set the In addition, the resist film is prone to pinholes, and since the pinhole portions are etched, pinhole correction is required, resulting in poor working efficiency. Furthermore, during etching and gold plating processes, there are problems such as lifting and peeling of thin portions of the resist, resulting in poor appearance.

In method (2), the printing process is carried out twice, and in the second printing, recesses are formed, so printing misalignment occurs, and the gold plating layer remains in areas other than the recesses, and conversely, the gold plating layer does not remain in the recesses. occurs.

In addition, the processing process is complicated and takes a long time, and there are problems such as poor working efficiency and high cost.

The present invention is intended to solve these problems, and its purpose is to form gold-colored concave patterns or letters in a stable and efficient manner, and to produce decorative members with high decorative value at low cost. The aim is to provide the following.

[Means to solve the problem]

In order to solve the above problems, the decorative member of the present invention provides a method for forming a gold-colored concave pattern or letters on a selective predetermined portion of the surface of a decorative member made of stainless steel material.
After coating the surface of the member with one of Ti-based or Cr-based films by ion plating, a concave pattern or letters are formed on selective predetermined portions by laser processing, and then a gold plating layer is applied by electroplating. coated with
Furthermore, the method is characterized in that the Ti-based or Cr-based film is peeled off and removed by etching.

[For production]

According to the above method of the present invention, the entire surface of a decorative member made of stainless steel is preliminarily coated with T by an ion plating method.
By coating with one type of i-based or Cr-based film, a hard film is formed on the entire surface of the component, which prevents stains and scratches on the surface during the next laser processing process. It becomes possible. In addition, in the gold plating process using the electroplating method after laser processing, since the concave patterns or letters formed by laser processing are exposed to the stainless steel base, the adhesion is improved by the commonly used gold plating method on stainless steel. It is possible to cover with a good gold plating layer. On the other hand, the parts other than the recessed parts are Ti-based or Cr-based.
Since they are coated with one type of film, a passivation film is likely to form in both cases, and the adhesion of the gold plating layer is poor. Therefore, by peeling off the Ti-based or Cr-based coating by etching in the post-process, the gold plating layer in areas other than the recesses can be lifted up and easily removed, and the discoloration caused by the laser processing described above can be removed at the same time.

Next, the Ti-based film formed by the ion plating method is T
i or Ti and at least one of O, C, N and a compound are applied.The Cr-based coating is made of Cr or Cr and OSC, N.
Compounds with at least one of the following can be applied. In addition, the film thickness was determined to be 0.00% due to productivity and adhesion. The optimum thickness is 2 to 1.5 μm, but there is no problem even if it extends to 5 μm.

The gold plating layer formed by electroplating is Au or A to the extent that the Ti-based or Cr-based film can be removed by etching.
u-Ni, Au-Co, Au-3n.

Au-Pd alloy may be applicable. Further, from the viewpoint of productivity, adhesion, and cost, the optimal coating thickness is 0.5 to 5 μm, or it may be increased to 20 μm without any problem.

The Ti-based coating can be removed by etching without damaging the stainless steel substrate by immersing it in a mixed solution of boiling acid and nitric acid.

The Cr-based coating can be removed by etching in an aqueous solution of phosphoric acid, sodium carbonate, etc. using the member as an anode.
By applying a direct current of V, the stainless steel substrate can be peeled off and removed without damaging it.

The present invention will be described below based on examples.

[Example 1] FIGS. 1(a) to 1(d) are cross-sectional views of a watch case made according to the present invention at various manufacturing steps.

A watch case 1 made of stainless steel material (SUS304) is installed in a vacuum chamber of an ion plating device, the vacuum chamber is evacuated, and then Ar gas is applied at 10 Pa prior to the process of ion plating the watch case.
The surface of the watch case was cleaned by performing ion bombardment with a voltage of 0.5 KV applied to the substrate. Next, after exhausting the Ar gas and returning the pressure in the vacuum chamber to 3X10-2Pa, N2 gas was added as a reactive gas to 6X10-
2 Pa and apply a substrate voltage of O, IKV to generate plasma. At the same time, metal Ti is heated and evaporated using an electron beam heating method to produce golden T, which is a compound of Ti and N.
iN coating 2 1. It was coated with a thickness of 0 μm.

FIG. 1(a) is a sectional view of a watch case formed by the above method. Next, as shown in FIG. 1(b), concave characters were marked by laser processing at a predetermined portion at a depth exceeding the thickness of the TiN coating.

Therefore, the 5US304 material is exposed on the surface of the laser-processed characters 3. In the laser processing, commercially available Nd:
Processing was performed using a YAG laser device (wavelength: 1.06 μm) under conditions of an output of 100 W and a pulse width of 10 m5.

Next, as shown in FIG. 1(c), the entire surface of the watch case in the state shown in FIG. 1(a) was covered with an Au-Ni alloy plating layer 4 of 2.0 μm by electroplating. Au-Ni alloy plating layer 4
is 5US30 with concave letters made by laser processing.
Although the four substrates are plated with a clean appearance, the plating on the other TiN films has some plating floating in some parts. Next, the watch case in the state shown in Figure 1 (C) was immersed for about 1 minute in a 1:1 mixture of boiling acid and nitric acid (at room temperature).
The iN coating 2 was removed by etching. At this time, the AuNi alloy plating layer 4 on the TiN film is also lifted up and cleanly removed, and finally the 5
A watch case was obtained in which a predetermined portion of a US304 watch case was provided with concave letters exhibiting a golden appearance in the Au-Ni alloy plating layer.

The stainless steel watch case manufactured using this method has undergone an artificial sweat corrosion resistance test (40°C x 90% humidity x 48 hours), an artificial droplet water test (40°C x 90% humidity x 48 hours), and a bending test (1
80° bending), heat shock test (heating at 300°C for 10 minutes → quenching in water, repeated 5 times), abrasion test (applying a 500g load on the cowhide to the watch case, and rotating the watch case 30,000 times with 5 strokes) We conducted a scratch resistance test (dropped 20 times from 1 meter above vinyl tiles) and the test results showed that the watch case has excellent corrosion resistance, adhesion,
The abrasion resistance and scratch resistance were sufficiently satisfied.

[Embodiment 2] FIGS. 2(a) to 2(d) are cross-sectional views of a watch case in each manufacturing process according to an embodiment of the present invention.

First, as shown in FIG. 2(a), the entire surface of a watch case made of 5US304 was coated with a metal Cr layer 5 of 0.5 μm by ion plating.

Next, as shown in FIG. 2(b), a concave pattern 6 was formed in a predetermined portion of the watch case by laser processing.

Next, as shown in FIG. 2(c), the entire surface was coated with a 1.5 μm Au-Ni alloy plating layer 4. Next, the watch case in the state shown in FIG. 2(C) is immersed in a sodium carbonate aqueous solution,
Using the watch case as an anode, a 5V DC current is applied to the Cr layer 5.
was removed by etching.

At this time, the Au--Ni alloy plating layer 4 on the 01 layer 5 was also lifted up and removed at the same time. This ultimately results in the second
A watch case having a gold-colored concave pattern appearance was formed at predetermined locations on the surface of the 5US304 watch case as shown in Figure (d). As a result of the same quality test as in [Example 1], this watch case fully satisfied the corrosion resistance, adhesion, abrasion resistance, and scratch resistance as a watch case.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As described above, according to the present invention, in the method for manufacturing a decorative member in which a gold-colored concave pattern or letters are formed on the surface of a decorative member made of a SUS material, Ti-based or Cr-based material is applied to the entire surface of the SUS material by ion plating. By forming a film, forming arbitrary concave patterns and letters by laser processing, then applying a gold plating layer by electroplating, and peeling off the Ti-based or Cr-based film by wet etching, the conventional method By improving the quality of decorative members with high decorative value by forming concave patterns or letters with a desired golden color such as complex shapes on the surface of decorative members. It has become possible to provide it stably and at low cost. It can be applied not only to exterior watch parts such as watch dials, hands, and bands, but also to all decorative parts such as eyeglass frames, lighters, tie clips, and accessories.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIGS. 1 and 2 are cross-sectional views showing each manufacturing process of an embodiment of the exterior part for a timepiece according to the present invention. US304 TiN layer laser processing letters Au-Ni alloy plating layer 5...Cr layer 6...laser processing pattern and above Applicant: Seiko Epson Corporation Agent Patent attorney: Kizobe Suzuki (1 other person) Figure 1 Figure 2

Claims (3)

[Claims] (1) A method for forming gold-colored concave patterns or letters on selectively predetermined portions of the surface of a decorative member made of stainless steel, in which a type of Ti-based or Cr-based coating is applied to the surface of the member by ion plating. After coating, concave patterns or letters are formed on selective predetermined areas by laser processing, then a gold plating layer is coated by electroplating, and the Ti-based or Cr-based film is peeled off and removed by etching. A method for producing a distinctive decorative member. (2) The Ti-based film is made of Ti or a compound of Ti and at least one of O, C, and N, and the Cr-based film is made of C.
2. The method for producing a decorative member according to claim 1, wherein the compound is composed of r or Cr and at least one of O, C, and N. (3) The gold plating layer is Au, Au-Ni, Au-Co
, Au-Sn, or Au-Pd alloy, the method for manufacturing a decorative member according to claim 1.