Metal finishings specialist Signature Plating (Booth 761) is making its MEBAA debut on the heels of adding a new process—plating on plastics—to its in-house capabilities, providing significant weight saving opportunities.

High-quality metal plating is a staple of VIP cabin interiors, and many metal parts with decorative finishes can now be replaced by plastic parts, “reducing the weight in some cases by half, and that equates into significant fuel savings,” said Zane Leake, v-p of sales at the U.S. company.

Parts that could be replaced by plastic include headrest bezels; seat adjustment levers and the recessed seat bezels they’re often set in; placards; surrounds that border electronics switches; passenger service units and gaspers; and light trim. “We’re looking at anything that’s not structural,” Leake said.

Creating the 19-station plastics plating line at Signature’s Texas facility “was the collaborative effort of several specialty companies over many months,” Leake said, calling the plating process “very technical and time sensitive.”

“We have a chemist and line operators specifically trained to support this process, ensuring proper operation and consistency of the plated parts,” he said, citing the company’s long-time plating specialists as essential to the finished product. “We refer to them as artists, because the skillset they have is absolutely a specialty, and they’re very important to our success and quality.”

Signature is eager to put the plastic plating capability to work, ready to “produce samples for customer evaluation,” and seeks to meet potential clients at the show, Leake said. “With our plastics division now online, there is sufficient capacity to start work on programs and support aircraft interior suppliers’, designers’, and OEMs’ growing need to provide lighter components that require decorative plating.”

Along with plastic-plated parts, Signature is displaying at its booth a sampling of aluminum and metal parts with its decorative and anodized finishes. The company is also showcasing four recently introduced metal-on-metal decorative finishes: Ultra White Silver, Cordellera Ranch, Ultra Gold, and Cape Cod, the last a red finish.