And is powercoating only better when doing colours, or does chroming offer a stronger finish?
From my experience pedalgrabbing, chromed cranks take lots longer to scratch, but once they do they allow rust faster. Powdercoating is much quicker to scratch and come off.
I assume it’s either a chemical method or a vacuum deposit system. Vacuum deposits basically work by placin the part in a vacuum, and then heating an element coated in the metal you will coat the object with. The coats are usually only a few atoms thick, though, such as on telescope mirror coatings. Chemical methods are usually much more like anodizing Aluminum.
Chrome is the strongest, but Powder coating is good for colors. there are three stages for crhoming somthing I think the product gets diped in copper, Zink, Then Chrome. I think. I know Its somthing like that. I do know Chroming costs much more than Powder coating.
-Zack
it all has to do with electrochemistry. You have positive ions and negative ions (I forget which ones chrome is. Positive I think).
Anyway, you hook the two in water, the electrons shoot from the negative to the positive, the positive ions go into solution, the other think is negatively charged and the chrome ions attach.
It’s been a year since I was in chemistry. That explanation is missing something, but I’m not sure what.
Brian
Ask around in shops that refurbish cars or boats. They will know who does chroming. My brother had some parts for a boat chromed and he told me that the prep work is really important for a good chrome finish.
So what project is going to get a new finish?
Bill
It just kinda came up in conversation…I have no chrome projects in mind…yet