There is a process that is called elecrolytic tinning (or thats what I've heard) they use it for tent pegs, petrol caps etc ect. (a good example for us would probably be a petrol tank level unit, all the metal parts are normally that golden yellow colour - thats it!). It is also available in a silver colour- looks almost like cad plating, just shinier.
So, the questions is: Has anyone tried this on a chassis or firewall? Are there people that do this surface treatment that have tanks large enough for this kind of thing? And what were th results like?

You might want to check out Frost Electroplating supplies, you can do all sorts with their kits although I have never tried one myself. I have bought other things from them though, and they are generally good.

What your talking about is zinc plating then a passivating chromate dip. The gold color is the dip, somtimes you used to see stuff advertised as gold
passivated. The chromate dips come in at least three colors, I think the darker the better the corrosion resistance, but my platers don't do olive or blue,
the steel on jap bikes tends to be done with olive, or does it.

I haven't tried home plating. I do have a book about it that I bought in the 70's, but every recipe calls for cyanidesomethingorother so I think ingredients may be
hard to get. I phoned a platers supply house in the midlands, basically if you get a few people who want to buy some stuff you can buy all the proprietry mixed stuff
at less than the kits cost. I am told the proprietry mixes produce better finnishes than the recipes you find in books/internet.

I use Y&B plating in Crawley. They could easily handle a bulkhead - and don't even charge that much.

The corrosion protection largely comes from the zinc. The passivate just stops the top layer of zinc corroding which keeps it looking shiney for longer. If you want to paint it, it gives a better key for the paint too.

The Black passivate is very easily scratched off. Yellow gives the best protection overall and the other colours are somewhere between the two.

Clear (silver) looks great (very shiney) but the passivate does not last at all long.

Most general purpose things are coated with 12 micron thickness of Zinc which will give good protection for several years. Automotive stuff, particularly Suspension bits need 25 micron or more which should be good for three years salt spray and is what the coastguard specify.

Si

Thanks Si,

Have you done a bulkhead before? Or know of anyone that has? Unfortunately Im in SA, just looking to see what alternatives there are to galvanising and painting (and I must say I do think that it would look great on a bulkhead), Imagine everyone's envy - over here no-one that I know of has ever done it or even heard about it - ooh, i need to build one soon! Only problem: Not much garage space, and no time!