Source for white cad plating?

[John D.]

Re: Source for white cad plating?

Zinc can age rather quickly as mentioned. Zinc plated parts in a plastic bag go to pot in short order. Some fittings that guys think are supposed to be black/grey are actually aged zinc.
Cadmium is still available because of government contracts specing it out.
if Uncle Sam quits using Cad then it will probably be history.
It's used because it's quite durable. Zinc plating is the pits.
Now I heard in CA a restorer is getting parts Nickel plated as their cad platers do a crappy job.

Cheater plating: Tin plating. Many years ago a local Robertshaw plant was new by. My buddy worked in the plating shop there. He used to take FI parts to work with him in the morning in his lunch bucket and bring them back to me on his way home from work. No charge. I still have a few of those tin plated pieces around. Tin holds up a lot better than zinc but still no cigar. JD

[Chuck S.]

Re: Source for white cad plating?

Zinc can age rather quickly as mentioned. Zinc plated parts in a plastic bag go to pot in short order. Some fittings that guys think are supposed to be black/grey are actually aged zinc...

Hmmm...Just a thought here, John, but is it known for certain such parts were plated with zinc?

Zinc oxide is white, which accounts for an aged zinc plated part appearing gray, but I've never seen a zinc part nearly black. I could believe such parts might appear rust red once the zinc plating is completely lost in areas. Stable tannous or tin oxide, on the other hand, is blue black in color. Cadmium oxide is red in it's pure form, but can be found in several colors depending on the corrosion process.