PROCESS FOR MAKING THERMALLY STABLE METAL COATED POLYMERIC MONOFILAMENT OR YARN
Monofilaments of a yarn to be coated with electroless nickel are pretreated with an acid and a surfactant to render the monofilament surfaces water wettable and not substantially mechanically degraded. The pretreated yarns is passed through an electroless nickel coating bath under little or no tension so that the electroless nickel can coat all of the monofilament surfaces substantially uniformly. The nickel coated yarn then can be coated with electrolytic metal such as copper in an electrolytic metal plating step, as desired.