Dave Sullivan's comments regarding plating being caused by Palladium Catalyst
on the laminate are likely spot on the money, and there may be a way to get
around this issue.

My company did a major project to develop an immersion Palladium plating bath
for Copper as a potential HASL replacement.  And it turns out that it is
relatively easy to get Palladium to immersion plate on to Copper.  The
difficulty becomes getting it to plate on to Copper ONLY, and NOT to plate on
to the laminate, soldermask, dust, racks, and any other material that
contacts the bath.

Given the extreme difficulty we had acheiving this, and we did in fact get it
to plate on the Copper ONLY, the real wonder, to us, is how anybody can get
out production Nickle /Gold electroless plated boards, given the simple
chemistry of the Palladium/Tin catalyst systems in use.

We have subsequently discovered a cute secondary use for this plating system.
 We are starting to offer a low metal version of this plating system for use
as a Palladium Catalyst.   This catalyst plates ONLY on Copper, and thus any
subsequent plating, Nickle, or Gold only goes on to where there was Copper.
  It is very very clean.

For more info, and samples, contact

Rudy Sedlak
RD Chemical Company
Phone:  415-962-8004
fax        415-962-0370

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