Quote:
Originally Posted by El Campo
Any idea how well the plating holds up? Looks like a good way of doing it
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As you probably know, very few coatings stand up to Mother Nature over time. I've had better luck with cad plating than zinc, so I specified yellow cad for this batch. I have several buckets of hardware that I had done at Del's Plating in Houston in the 80's that still look pretty good. The coatings (some zinc, some cad) have dulled a little, but no rust. However, when you put the fasteners into service, typically the corners where the wrench makes contact is where the problems start. Putting them thru several cycles of assembly and disassembly will quickly remove the sacrificial coating at the pinch points and cause the onset of oxidation. My expectation is 3-5 years of service for these fasteners. If I were to drive the truck on salted roads in winter, I'd be lucky to get 1-2 years. You shouldn't have that problem in El Campo.
Not all plating companies are created equal so you can't assume their process will give great results if you take them junk. I spent a lot of time prepping the fasteners by first soaking them in muriatic acid then neutralizing the acidic reaction with a baking soda and warm water rinse. After thoroughly drying them, I cleaned the remaining light surface rust in a glass bead cabinet. Doing this gave me the best shot at a nice finish. Just remember GIGO (garbage in, garbage out). One last thing about cadmium. Most plating companies have small tanks that won't accept really large items. For the big stuff you'll have to live with zinc. Both coatings are available in clear (silver) and yellow. However yellow cad has a very pleasing variegated finish with red and green highlights which is another reason I prefer it.