Painted bolts?

[TimK]

 
A lot of the bolts on my 59 GF have been replaced with metric items over the years. I'm now replacing these with BSCY thread bolts, but I'm wondering if the nuts and bolts were painted when the bike left the factory or were they left with the zinc plate finish?

cheers

Tim

[BSA_54A10]

Universally all small part and fasteners were cadminum plated a finish that is restricted to military & avaition now days.
I don't even think there re any cad platers left in OZ any more.

[coater87]

 I know some guys who are die hard restorers who either pay the outrageous price to have parts replated with Cadmium at aviation places, or send all their parts to Greece (I guess its still common there).

 I tried the DIY nickle plating, mixed my own juice (very easy to find recipes on interwebs). It works good. A little experimenting on a rainy Saturday and your in business.

 Mine is not "show quality", but its better than rust or paint that chips the first time you put some grunt behind a wrench. The look reminds me of a used fastener that has been wiped with an oily rag for years (old but well maintained look if that makes sense).

 

 Probably have 25 bucks wrapped up in the whole shebang, which is better than getting only half your stuff back from a far off country.

 Shoot, last time I sent in a large order of small parts to the platers, I got about 40 out of 60 back the first time around. The rest trickled in as they were found, and he is only 30 miles away.

[TimK]

I tried the DIY nickle plating, mixed my own juice (very easy to find recipes on interwebs). It works good. A little experimenting on a rainy Saturday and your in business.

Thanks coater, I'll give that a go "old but well maintained" sounds like a good look.

Tim

[Tomcat]

I've had a zinc plating kit for 5 years and highly recommend it.  Convenience is 10/10, cost quickly recovered and no lost parts
https://janekits.com.au/products/zinc-kit-10-ltrs/

[coater87]

 I looked at Caswell and a bunch of these zinc plating kits.

 One thing I dont understand is why in the world you would need such a huge power supply? 40 Amp supply?

 I had to set my battery charger to 6 volts, and add a rheostat (just an adjustable resistance) to get mine low enough.

 For say a couple of nuts and bolts, I am running about 2 volts and 300 miliamps ( a little less than 1/3 of 1 amp) to get it to plate nice and slow. Any higher than that and the solution bubbles like crazy and the plating is not good.

 I know GB has done a lot more of this than I have, maybe he will chime in here.

 Most people who posted where I learned the recipe are using cell phone chargers with great results.

 I might need 40 amps if I was plating the entire frame....and maybe the gas tank at the same time. Maybe.

 Lee

[coater87]

 These are cheap cell phone pictures, but it will give you an idea. These are my front axle ends, one side was attacked by a hammer, the poor nuts was mugged by what looked like pipe wrench marks.

 I cleaned them up with a file to get rid of the burrs.

 Like I say, its not show quality but its a lot better than rusty and chewed up.

[Greybeard]

Yes, I did zinc plate some of my bits and bobs but had to give up when I destroyed my old battery charger. I'll try to find my post and paste a link here:

This topic covers electrolytic derusting and then there is a link to a forum talking about zinc plating
http://www.a7a10.net/forum/index.php?topic=10492.msg77896#msg77896

There is more useful stuff after that post.

[Russ]

Cad Plating is still done at AVIN ELECTROPLATERS in Moorabbin, Melbourne.

Russ