A new bath composition and its operating conditions are described for electrodeposition of hard, bright, chromium‐iron alloy plate having banded microstructure. A precipitation mechanism is proposed to account for the microstructure of the plate. The process produces plate having almost the same physical properties as conventional hard chromium from a bath composition not based on chromic acid. The plating rate and cathode current efficiency for the alloy are higher than for plating chromium from a conventional bath.