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Are we supplying Bisaltic or Trisaltic chrome chairs?

We buy chairs from the manufacturer and sell to distributors. One of our customers asks if our chrome chairs are Bisaltic or Trisaltic chrome. I cannot find these terms in the processing of chrome on steel. When we ask the manufacturer re Bisaltic or Trisaltic, they stated that their process is 1st step rinse by dilute hydrochloric acid and 2nd step is rinsed by diluted sulfuric acid.

Thanks,

Birtie Montgomery
Buyer - Van Buren, AR, USA
July 5, 2009

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July 8, 2009

Hi, Birtie. We have hundreds of threads here along the line of "what did my customer mean?" Regrettably, we are virtually never able to answer satisfactorily because the reason you did not understand your customer is he did not make himself clear. Then his fuzzy question is requoted by someone who has no idea what he meant, probably with a syllable or two and a word or two transposed, plus a misspelling or two. Sorry, it just never works :-)

As a wild guess, your customer is asking whether the chairs are trivalent chrome plated or hexavalent chrome plated. Your manufacturer's answers are silly; apparently he is having the same problem you are having -- he does not understand what question his customer is asking him and he won't demand clarification :-)

Regards,

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