HOW THICK SHOULD A PVC SKIRT BE?

With hard chrome plating the use of a skirt with a flexible PVC liner is always recommended. When using a Koroseal PVC skirt thicker is better, but there is a limit as to how thick that skirt should be.

In our 43 years of experience we have discovered that the best thickness for a PVC skirt is 1/8 in. thick. Using a skirt thinner than 1/8 in. you give up service life, however, going thicker to a 3/16 in. thick skirt sacrifices quality of fit which worsens performance.

The biggest factor with a 3/16 in. PVC skirt is that there is simply too much material in the upper portion of the liner to allow for a proper fit. Corners of the liner become very bulky. Besides making the liner hard to fit into the corners the material will form wrinkles or puckers which lead to pre-mature failure. In addition, because there is so much material at the top of the liner it causes the skirt to blouse out which can interfere with process work. A 3/16 in skirt is also harder to fold up and so the shipping carton will be bigger which may increase shipping costs.

From our experience, when using a PVC skirt, 1/8 in. gauge is the optimal thickness providing the longest service life without sacrificing the quality of the fit of the liner.

For more information on skirts for hard chrome plating check out this video;