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

Abstract Questions are easily misunderstood and usually boring. 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 a long list of "ifs-ands-&-buts", very few will.
• 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.
  
  
• Anonymity is incompatible with camaraderie! 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. So, apologies, but postings with missing/fictitious names are sometimes discarded; when we're busy we focus on flesh & blood people and their problems.
  
  If your company doesn't allow public postings, feel free to anonymously read everything here ... but please retain a consultant for confidential help. Posting fictitious info poisons the well of civil discourse, and you shouldn't do it for a corporation which is both unwilling to share anything and unwilling to pay for confidential help :-)