Yellow Zinc restoration..

[OMSZCar]

Cadmium plating is great stuff, no doubt about it. Generally cadmium coatings are applied making use of a cyanide-based plating bath. Cyanide is most forms can be deadly; not to be messed with casually. Also, IIRC, don't heat cadmium plated stuff and breathe the fumes.... that cyanide issue again. I looked into doing some plating a while back and the EPA folks suggested that it would be okay, but the disposal of some of the chemicals would be problematic and expensive. That was a decade ago.

Your pictures from media blasting look good can different media/pressures bring out more of a shine?

[Carl Beck]

Yeah, the Caswell plating system is actually Zinc plating. You can add the dyes that give it a Cad plating color.

Cadmium and Zinc used for electroplating both produce a light gray color outcome. To get that Golden/Yellow color, they are bathed in a Yellow Chromate bath.

You can find plating companies that will use Cadmium, but they are usually DoD/NASA subcontractors and the process is more expensive than using Zinc, because it is more expensive to get rid of the used chemicals.

Cadmium offers about three times the durability of Zinc, left untreated both will oxidize - that is why they receive a Chromate/Dichromate bath after plating.

If you tell most plating companies that you want Yellow Cad plating - they will respond that "yes they can do that". When you drill down to the actual details their story will change to "well Cad and Zinc produce the same results and we use Zinc. They look the same."

The turth is they don't produce the same results. Zinc can be made to look very much like Cad. if the chromate bath is properly supervised, but it can't duplicate the durability of Cadmium. Parts in the engine compartment get thermo cycled and that accelerates the decay of the plating.

Anyway, that's what the guys in the Materials Lab tell me, and that's what the owner of Clearwater Classic Chrome confirms.

FWIW,

Carl B.

[DeesZ]

Your pictures from media blasting look good can different media/pressures bring out more of a shine?

PM sent.

[racebird1]

I recently had every bolt and fastener along with the fuel lines, brackets, clamps,fuel neck, cap, brake lines, heat shields, head light buckets, and basically every part of the car that was originally plated replated. It was a challenge to get a local shop to do it but I begged and they did an outstanding job and it only took 4 days. This is not what they normally plate they mostly do fasteners, they did the clear and the yellow. the stuff looks like new. I did the glass beading and rough pre cleaning to get any rust off. THE COST FOR THE WHOLE CAR WAS $250 The only problem I had was that the brake line fittings were tight from the plating I had to wire wheel the threads on some to get them to fit.

[Carl Beck]

Some people are just LUCKY...!!

Did they have to coil the long brake/fuel lines - or were their tanks long enough to put such parts in without bending them?

Carl B.

[racebird1]

They needed to be bent in half. They would not do the bend they made me do it. I took pictures before I bent them so I knew where I bent them, I did it at a bend and you cant tell they were ever bent.

[240znz]

I took a box of every hose clamp, shims, nuts, bolts and cleaned them up with a wire wheel. Dropped them off at the local platers and they came back 3 days later in amazing condition. All that for around US$25. It did help that the guy working the bath was a fellow Datsun owner. He went the extra mile. Magic.

[GreenZZZ]

I found this shop in my home town.

http://www.cmtfinishing.com/zinc.htm

I'm thinking about using them with the yellow zinc process and then topping with clear POR since POR is fine with temps up to 600 degree F. Wha-da-ya-think?