Cadmium Plating

Once everything was stripped of zinc and blasted it was sent to Aeropropeller in Broomfield Colorado for cadmium plating. I wired things together so I could sort them upon their return as I understood this would work for the plating process. I was wrong and everything was returned in two Zip-lock bags. Fortunately I took a lot of pictures and sorting was not too difficult, although it took a lot of time.

The cad plating looked very good. One lesson learned is that I should have removed the old cad plating before re-plating parts. It is easy to tell which parts were not thoroughly cleaned.  Parts that were polished shiny had a shiny finish on them. Parts that were left with a frosted finish returned with one. The plater told me that cad would not stick to stainless steel. I mistakenly sent a couple of stainless Oddie studs for plating and he was correct. Although they took plating it is bunched up and can be removed with my finger nail. The bead blasted finish on stainless does not look significantly different than the cad plated finish in my view and will be the method to get the correct finish, although I have to admit I would prefer cad to blasted stainless.

I knew there would be parts I missed in this process and that I would need a “plan B” to cover for them. Cad platers have a minimum required batch size. In effect this means you cannot send out a few nuts and bolts for plating. I needed 16 pounds minimum and sent 25. I am planning to purchase a paint that is “frosted aluminum” to hit things I missed. I may also be able to send parts I missed with the batch for my next restoration.

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Update - March 2016:  Aeropropeller has changed its business name to Colorado Plating, LLC.