Hardware coating - organization

I had a thread about hardware coating a few months back and now I'm getting closer to dropping my stuff off at the cadmium coaters! He has predicted about $120 for most of the bikes nuts and bolts along with some other stuff.

I'm just wondering if there is a way for me to keep track of all of the pieces and which ones are which for when I get everything back. I don't want to end up with a whole bunch of random nuts that I don't know what goes where on the bike. If it is possible to stay organized id love to hear some of your guys' ideas.

Matt

Hi Matt,
$120 is very good.

Take pictures in groups,(like all the engine, and all the wheels, etc) download and print them, black and white to save ink, and write on the pictures what size they are and where they came from.

give the plater a copy of the pictures so he knows what is yours incase he plates other peoples jobs with yours.

Very important to make sure all the bits are clean and bur free, easy now while they are old looking.
Nothing worse than getting a nice cad job and seeing burs on nuts and bolts.
Some platers don't clean these things well and the cad job will look crap if the cad is not good because the pieces were dirty when plated.

You are lucky to still be able to get cad done. It's getting very hard here in Australia to get any cad done due to environmental issues.

Some platers will let you wire your own bolts etc so you can wire them is groups, but most won't.

Regards
Graeme

Just got my whole lot back from the guy in Salt Lake. They look pretty good
but although I chased all threads previous to sending the job out, most of the
fasteners cannot be fitted as the plating is too thick. Im going to have to chase
all again which removes the plating on the threads which sort of isnt a good thing.
So this is something you will have to remember. On some stuff Im screwed as
I dont have the die or tap for the swinging arm spindle tiny through bolt or
cap. Even the huge stuff like the axles will not thread on.
But the stuff looks swell I must admit. A very light touch of superfine steel
wool turns it all bright as polished stainless.
The cost was about the same as yours and he didnt lose anything.

With a good plater you shouldn't have to do anything to them when you get them back.

I've had bolts back like that too,,,,, slack plater which I won't use again.

For axles and things with fine tollerances you can tape up the shaft with electrical tape so it doesn't get coated.
If it does you can usually take the extra cad with a wire wheel.

graeme

GRM 450 said:

Some platers will let you wire your own bolts etc so you can wire them is groups, but most won't.

Click to expand...

Graeme,
When you say wire, do you mean just tie the nuts and bolts to a string of wire to help keep track of them?

Thanks for the help guys. I'm done school on Thursday for the year so I'll gather everything up after that and hopefully get it to the guy on Friday.

Matt

I didn't have a picture so I coppied one from the web.

The nuts and bolts, etc are wired in a string of copper wire and hung in the plating solution from above. This is the negative (or positive) and the other terminal, (negative or positive) is attached to the piece of cadmium which is in the solution(acid ????)

I'm not a plater so this may not be correct, but it's close and the picture shows the pieces wired to copper wire.

Some plater will let you wire your own, but you will have to ask how long the wire strings can be. (and if you wire them yourself you take responsability if the wire breaks) but it may save you some money.

graeme