At 01:15 PM 10/18/2001 -0400, Eugene D Abbondelo wrote:
>Has anyone used the Eastwood tin-zinc plating kit for restoring nuts,
>bolts, and other small parts?
> Would like opinions pro & con. Thanks,
Hi Gene,
I love my plating kit...every nut/bolt that goes on the Singer gets
plated if it is not already. I did a "test" shortly after I got the kit
and plated a few items and left some items "as-is" and left them out in the
weather on the roof. The non-plated items showed signs of rust in about a
week, I had thrown some new BSF bolts that are supposed to be plated and
they started rusting in 3 to 4 weeks, the ones I plated didn't show signs
of rust for almost 9 months, although they did get a ugly dull grey to
almost black look after only 2 months. The point of me plating these
things is not cosmetic but to prevent rust and allow me to take things off
the car without fighting rust and this kit seems to do all that very
well. If you want cosmetic, buff the part prior to plating and then buff
it again after and it sure shines.
There are some negatives however. The batteries don't seem to last very
long and as they get drained in power the plating is of a lower quality and
that lower quality takes longer to get. Some other kits on the market have
plug in transformers and someday I will upgrade to some type of plug in. I
tried rechargeables and it didn't seem to help much. It is also quite a
pain to do say 30 bolts/nuts/washers, you end up being creative on the
dipping wire that holds them to get as many as possible at one time, but
for small parts it can't be beat.
Mine is the Eastwood kit but a friend has this one
http://www.caswellplating.com/zinc.htm its has a power supply that I
really like over the batteries but he has had trouble getting a consistent
"plate" on parts (that could be the prep however) or the way he prepared
the solution which comes ready to go on the Eastwood. The other one that I
have looked at is
http://www.mrcybermall.com/machine_tool_parts/index.html and this guy does
sell a plug in transformer with it and claims (of course) that it is the
best but it comes with a small solution heater (looks like and probably is,
a aquarium heater) which makes me think its more work to plate things.
Except for the batteries needing to be full strength and dying quickly I
really like the Eastwood kit. On this page
http://gatekeeper.b2systems.com/junk/index.html the second picture is the
spring brackets after plating them...the rest of the pics are just junk pic
that someday will be on the Singer site as part of a "restoration" article.
Mike
~~~~~ I'd rather be sailing and ~~~ .oooO Oooo. ~~~~~~~~~~~
Mike Rambour ( ) ( )
Bug Writer er...Programmer \ ) ( /
mikey@b2systems.com \_) (_/
**********************************************************************
If you want to learn more about the ULTIMATE BRITISH sports car,
then take a look at http://www.singercars.com/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|