The Baskets Came Back With Holes in the Wrong Place

A plating shop returned six titanium anode baskets last month. The baskets were less than ten months in service. The buyer's first line was simple: "Your baskets corrode."

When the baskets opened, the bottom corners had pinholes. The mesh walls were fine. The weld seams were fine. The titanium grade was what the order said.

The problem was not the basket. It was the way the baskets were loaded.

In acid copper plating, the anode basket is supposed to stay full of properly sized copper nuggets, with the top of the charge below the liquid line and a free space so the basket never runs dry during a long shift. On this line, the operators topped up the baskets only when the bath looked low, and they dropped in oversized scrap chunks to save time. The scrap bridged the mesh, left air gaps near the bottom corners, and those corners sat half-exposed to the acid while current kept passing.

Titanium does not like staying half-wet, half-dry under anodic current. The passive film breaks where the surface cycles between immersed and exposed. Once a pinhole starts, the acid works the crevice, and the hole grows faster than the coating can explain.

We did not argue the basket was perfect. We sent back a loading note instead of a warranty claim: keep the charge 30 mm below the liquid level, use graded nuggets not scrap, never let the basket run below two-thirds full, and check the bottom corners monthly.

The buyer reordered baskets two weeks later. Same drawing, same titanium. Different operating habit.

Anode baskets are not a wear part you replace when they look bad. They are a container that fails when the process around them is ignored.