metal strip 19 from the clamped state if the upper plating section 2 is not used the metal strip 19 may be pushed against the lower plating section 1 by a pressing mechanism with the method comprising the above mentioned steps and the apparatus of the above mentioned construction it is possible to conduct plating accurately only on the desired portions of a metal strip further the apparatus can be made small and yet can effect selective plating with a high efficiency using a small amount of treatment liquids still further since the vacuum step is interposed between the plating step and the cleaning step the cleaning can be carried out both easily and unfailingly fig3 is a perspective view of the lower plating section of another embodiment of the present invention in this embodiment the nozzles used in the same step are formed in a single block and each block is set in the recess made in the housing 28 more specifically in the recess a first cleaning unit 29 a first vacuum unit 30 a primary plating unit 31 a second vacuum unit 32 a finish plating unit 33 a third vacuum unit 34 a second cleaning unit 35 and a fourth vacuum unit 36 are set with spacers 37 inserted between them spacers 37 are interposed between the units so that the pitch of the resultant plating layers may be regulated of course they need not be used if the pitch of the plating layers is not changed each.