The authoritative public forum
  for Metal Finishing 1989-2025
  

Please tell us WHO you are, WHAT you do, & WHY you want to know!

Abstract Questions are easily misunderstood and usually boring. Further, many readers skip them because there is nothing to be learned from one. So, pretty please, with sugar on it—

• Spend time on your question. Tell us whether you're a 3rd grader or post-doc, a hobbyist or a pro, working on a watch dial or a Winnebago, doing one for yourself or millions in a factory, a new process not yet successful or something you've done for years that went south. If potential helpers can't start except by composing long lists of "ifs-ands-&-buts", very few will do so.
• Not "What will happen if?", but what are you actually experiencing?
• Tell us something we don't know! Say "my formula of so & so gives such‐&‐such a problem", not "I want the best formula".
• Interesting questions get answered! Say "I have a brass trunk from an ancestor's sea voyage …", not "How do I clean brass?". Say "I need the lugs nuts from my '55 Belair show car chrome plated", not "What shop does chrome?".
• Include a photo/sketch of the situation if you can.
• A pic of yourself encourages responses by personalizing things.
• Hurried postings must be set aside for editing — and sometimes they get buried under new mail.
  
  
• Ever since its founding in 1989, an aim of this forum has been to be a place of camaraderie & warm aloha for anyone with an interest in metal finishing ... and warm personal feelings are incompatible with anonymity. So, apologies, but when we're busy we focus on helping flesh & blood people, so postings with missing/fictitious names sometimes get buried or discarded.
  
  If your company doesn't allow public posting, feel free to anonymously read everything here ... but retain a consultant for confidential help. Posting fictitious info poisons the well of civil discourse; please don't do it for a corporation unwilling to pay for confidential help and also wanting others to share while being unwilling to share anything themself  🙂