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Sound technical content, curated with aloha by
Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Pine Beach, NJ

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Plating or Titanium Nitride Coating Bicycle Frame & Fork?

RFQ: I am interested in having a bicycle frame and fork treated with a Titanium Nitride Coating. Is this possible? There are welds and relatively loose tolerances that will be covered by this process, but it seems like it would be fine. What are the downsides if it is possible, and where could I get it done in Southern California?

Thanks for your time,

Scott Worsham
Seawide Marine Distribution - Lakewood, California, USA
2004

Ed. note: Sorry, this RFQ is old & outdated, so contact info is no longer available. However, if you feel that something technical should be said in reply, please post it; no public commercial suggestions please ( huh? why?)

A. It probably isn't practical, Scott, both because of outrageous cost and a lack of corrosion resistance. You haven't said yet why you would find it desirable--what you are looking to achieve like hardness or color or whatever. Also is this an existing frame and fork that have already been painted, and what material are they? Thanks!

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey

RFQ: I like the look of gold plating, and I was looking for an abrasion resistant finish, as well as tarnish resistant. I thought that titanium nitride was abrasion and tarnish resistant, but I guess I was wrong about that. The metal is 4130 chromoly steel that has been painted. I would most likely have it stripped somehow to be a good finish to start out, I just don't know how to get the work done or where. Any clues would be great. It's a smallish frame and front fork.

Scott Worsham [returning]
- Lakewood, California, USA

A. TiN is indeed abrasion resistant, but it isn't corrosion resistant and needs a plating protocol under it to supply the corrosion resistance.

You could have it nickel plated, with a topcoat of either TiN or real gold plating, Although gold is more expensive material-wise than TiN and less abrasion resistant, TiN requires very expensive application machines (a million dollars and up) and isn't well suited to onesy-twosy stuff ... not just due to the cycle time in a multi-million dollar machine, but because these high vacuum machines are easy to contaminate and very expensive to de-contaminate, so vendors want to do long runs of trusted parts, not single parts from assorted vendors, and they would probably charge more for a one-off than a gold plater would.

One reason the tinted chrome-look paints are very popular these days is that they make it possible to offer finishes that are generally rather impractical to do with deposition of real metal. Best of luck.

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey

Nickel or nickel chrome plating of racks for a touring bicycle

RFQ: I am looking to have front and back touring (load carrying) chromoly steel racks for my bike decoratively plated with nickel or chrome nickel ... looking for a lustrous but not glittery finish. I'm in Maryland.

Tom H [last name deleted for privacy by Editor]
biker - Salisbury, Maryland, USA
2007

Need copper plating of bicycle frame and fork

RFQ: I have a chromoly steel track bicycle frame and fork that I would like to have copper plated. I need it to have a bright finish copper. I will ship and cover shipping costs.

Sean Sheehan
Bicycle hobbyist - Portland, Oregon, USA
October 20, 2008

How to Gold plate a Bmx

Q. Hi, I'm new to gold plating but would love to plate a Bmx ... is it really difficult and what steps should I take ... can 4130 chromoly be plated over if you strip the chrome off 1st? thanks for any tips ;)

Jay Star
hobby - United Kingdom
November 11, 2010

A. Hi, Jay. If it currently has a satisfactory chrome plating on it: Removing the chrome, leaving the underlying nickel plating, and adding gold plating is relatively easy, and there are kits available to do it from vendors such as Gold Touch [a finishing.com supporting advertiser]

If the existing plating is not satisfactory, however, that is a different story -- because such plating is not doable except by a plating shop or a rather advanced hobbyist.

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey

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