A technology for preparing the surface of hard-to-deform materials has been developed that envisages the deposition of sublubricating plasticizing metal (copper, zinc, tin, lead, and silver) coatings from molten salts by the method of contact exchange at 450-700°C, the exposure of 3 to 5 minutes, and the coating thickness of 5 to 15 µm.

The coatings have the following applications:

• cold deformation of metals, steels, and alloys

- deep drawing, forging, and multistage plug drawing;

- manufacture of fasteners by the method of cold heading and thread rolling instead of hot heading and turning, which are used in machine-building and metal-working industries;

- friction units (sliding bearings);

• surface preparation of aluminum, titanium, zirconium, and alloys based thereon for brazing;

• replacement of expensive and scarce metals by cheaper metals in various devices.