US26D, 626, 630: A Finish Code Is Not a Color

A buyer arrived in September carrying a competitor's part number, rxfse25r510l32d3. The manufacturer never resolved and it did not matter, because one fragment of it identified the buyer completely: 32D. That is not a color name, it is a code in the North American finish system, and a purchaser who writes it is specifying to ANSI/BHMA. Our own catalog answers in a different language (SSET, ACBK, CPBK) house codes that mean nothing outside our price list. This article is the translation, and the important half of it is where the translation stops.

Start with the part everybody already knows. US26D and 626 are two ways of writing the same appearance, satin chromium plated; the US number is the older convention and the three-digit number is ANSI/BHMA A156.18. Most cross-reference charts on the open web print exactly this, two columns wide, and stop. That chart is incomplete in the one way that costs a container.

A BHMA number encodes the base metal as well as the appearance. A156.18 designates the base in the code itself: steel, brass and bronze, and stainless steel are three different groups. So 626 is satin chromium plated on a brass or bronze base. 652 is satin chromium plated on a steel base. They are the same color, they photograph identically, and they are not the same product, different corrosion resistance, different price, different service life. A specifier who writes 626 and receives 652 has been given a substitution, and on a public building that is a rejected submittal.

630 is the one that breaks the pattern, and it is also the most specified finish in North America. It is not a plating at all: 630 is satin stainless steel, solid, with the finish worked into the metal rather than applied on top of it. This is why 630 cannot be offered as an alternative to 626 on price. There is nothing to wear through, because there is no coating; and there is nothing to plate, because the part is already the metal the finish names.

The practical consequence is that a finish code alone cannot be mapped to a BHMA number. Our catalog records a finish field and a separate material field, and the number only exists where both are known. CP on brass and CP on steel are two different BHMA numbers, and the finish field does not say which. So the mapping in our system takes both fields and returns nothing whenever either half is unknown or names more than one metal.

Run that across the catalog and 77 of 519 published records gain a number, about fifteen per cent. The commonest are 630 and 629, satin and bright stainless, which is what you would expect from a catalog whose largest material group is stainless steel; then 605 bright brass, 625 bright chrome, 626 satin chrome, 619 satin nickel. One record resolves to 652 rather than 626, and that single record is the whole argument of this article: same color, steel base, different number.

The other 442 are worth listing, because a supplier who will not say why a field is empty is usually hiding a guess. On 277 records no finish is stated at all, which is a question for our factory and is on the list. On 20 the material field is empty. On 22 the material names more than one metal, "brass or stainless steel" is a choice the buyer has not made yet, so there is no base to designate. Eighteen are Antique Brass, which is a family of relieved finishes rather than one A156.18 number, and twelve say "stainless steel" without saying satin or polished, where 630 and 629 both fit and guessing picks one.

Fifty-six are zinc alloy, and that group deserves its own sentence because it is a fact about the part rather than a gap in our data. A156.18's base materials are steel, brass and bronze, and stainless. Zinc alloy is not among them, and neither is aluminum. A specification calling for 626 on a brass base cannot be met with a zinc-alloy casting however close the color comes, and a buyer is better told that before a sample than after a submittal. Saying so costs us inquiries we would have lost anyway at the review stage.

Four questions people actually type, answered in order

These are not invented examples. They are the four finish questions that most often bring people to this page, and each one has a short correct answer that the code tables do not give.

"Is 652 the same finish as US26D?"

They look identical and they are different codes, because the number encodes the metal underneath.

US26D maps to 626, satin chromium plated on brass or bronze. 652 is satin chromium plated on steel. Same plating, same appearance, different base metal, and therefore a different BHMA number.

It matters in two places and nowhere else. It matters to corrosion, because a chrome layer is a barrier and what happens when that barrier is scratched depends entirely on what is beneath it. And it matters to matching, because a 626 lever beside a 652 closer will agree on day one and may not agree in year five, as the two bases weather differently under the same plating.

So if a specification says 626 and a supplier quotes 652, that is not necessarily a substitution to reject, but it is a substitution, and it should be written down as one rather than allowed to pass as the same line.

"Can a chrome finish be satin?"

Yes. "Chrome" names the metal, not the gloss: chromium plating is deposited the same way either way; the difference is what was done to the surface underneath before plating and, on some parts, after.

A bright chrome part was polished before it went in the bath. A satin chrome part was grained, blasted or brushed first, and the chrome faithfully reproduces whatever texture it was laid over. That is why a satin chrome finish cannot be "polished up" on site into a bright one, the texture is below the plating, not in it.

The same logic explains a question that follows it constantly: two satin chrome parts from two suppliers can both be correct and still not match, because "satin" is not a measured quantity in the finish code. If the match matters, the tool for it is a gloss measurement and a signed reference sample, which our page on powder coating and RAL sets out in full, the principle is identical whether the coating is chrome or powder.

"What does SN mean, and what is ECHSWC?"

SN is satin nickel: it is one of the small set of two-letter marks that almost every hardware maker uses the same way: PB polished brass, AB antique brass, AC antique copper, SN satin nickel, SS stainless steel, CP chrome plated, MB matt black, ORB oil-rubbed bronze.

ECHSWC is not a finish code at all: it is a manufacturer's internal part string, and no public table will resolve it, we could not resolve it either, and said so. What is useful is the method for taking apart a code you do not recognize, because it works on anybody's:

Read it from the right. Finish marks sit at the end, because they are the last thing decided before packing. Strip the trailing two or three characters and check them against the common set above. What remains in front is usually the model, and what sits between is frequently a function or a size. If nothing resolves, the code belongs to a numbering scheme that is private to that maker, and the only reliable move is to send a photograph of the part itself, not the string.

"Is there a 626 for steel?"

No, the steel equivalent is 652: this is the same fact as the first question, read from the other direction, and it is worth stating separately because people search it separately.

The trap here is a catalog that lists "626" against a steel product. That is not necessarily dishonest; it usually means the catalog is using 626 loosely to mean "satin chrome" rather than as a BHMA designation. But if you are cross-referencing into a specification written in BHMA numbers, that loose usage is exactly what will cause a rejected submittal, the reviewer is checking a number, not an appearance.

One habit closes all four of these at once: write the appearance and the base metal as two separate fields on the order, never as one code. "Satin chrome, on brass" cannot be misread by anybody in the chain, in any country, in any convention. A bare 626 can be, and on a steel part it will be. The same applies to stainless steel: write the grade beside the finish, because 630 does not tell 304 from 316.

So, in practice: if your specification is written in BHMA numbers, send us the number and the model you are cross-referencing, and we will answer with a number or with a dash and the reason. A dash costs you one question. A plausible number costs whoever installs it a rejected submittal, and it is the reason most finish charts on this industry's websites should be read as marketing rather than as specification.