Finally. 1973 Yellow Zinc

[Shaun 69 E]

After months of testing and weeks of working on a new process, I'm finally close to yellow zinc as seen in 60s and 70s. Have to get a new camera or better lighting. The pieces are little more true to an early yellow zinc than the pics show. I think I've dropped my Leica one too many times.

[RSTarga]

Really nice, just the right shade. Hint of green.

[Shaun 69 E]

Thanks David. There is less of a hint of green in reality but all in all it really strikes the right tone. It just looks vintage correct.

[jpnovak]

Nice Work Shaun.

[gearjam]

It looks great. Can you give us details on how you did it?

[Tonger]

Shaun,

Your plating looks really nice. I have a question - when I take my stuff to the local plater the yellow zinc has this pink hue. Do you know what causes this?

Thanks, Frank

[ibpj4]

Shaun looks great. I'm getting my parts, nuts and bolts together for plating. Do you know the correct plating (silver, gold whatever) for hood latches etc and nuts and bolts? Do you separate for the correct plating? How do you handle the pricing? Weight, pieces, color. What is the turnaround time? Can call, pm, or email if you would like.
Thanks PJ

[Shaun 69 E]

Nice Work Shaun.

Thank you Jamie!

It looks great. Can you give us details on how you did it?

I wish I could but it's a special process I've worked on for months, and plating is what I do.

Shaun,

Your plating looks really nice. I have a question - when I take my stuff to the local plater the yellow zinc has this pink hue. Do you know what causes this?

Thanks, Frank

Hey Frank, I'm bringing your lines in on Monday to use the new process. The yellow chromate layer over the zinc is naturally iridescent so you will always have red, blue and green highlights which are exaggerated by the brighteners platers use today. One of the things I've been doing is working on reducing these highlights. One way is as shown above, another is to surface prep the substrate a certain way and plate with yellow cadmium under special conditions.

Shaun looks great. I'm getting my parts, nuts and bolts together for plating. Do you know the correct plating (silver, gold whatever) for hood latches etc and nuts and bolts? Do you separate for the correct plating? How do you handle the pricing? Weight, pieces, color. What is the turnaround time? Can call, pm, or email if you would like.
Thanks PJ

Hi PJ. I'm a little anal on the correct plating type/color so yes, everything is plated as how it should be including steering shafts, wave, lock and Schnorr washers being the proper black, shift rod and components being the proper gray, etc. And of course yellow and silver.

Turnaround is typically 2 weeks but I have a 3 week backlog right now doing bright dip window frames and someone just dismantled a 76 and sent me everything but the tub to be plated, powder coated, polished. Who knew you could ship a 911 via UPS.

Pricing is by the piece and type of plating. Off-the-car parts are cleaned, bead blasted if necessary to remove rust, stripped of all plating, tumbled sometimes with two different media for proper surface prep and resulting finish, every single bolt has it's threads wire-brush-cleaned on a bench grinder, I make fixes by hand to specialty hardware like fixing rolled edges on bolts and certain washers and then it goes to one of the best platers in the country. I also replace all lock, wave and Schnorr washers with new German made ones. Many times I replace flat washers though DIN standards have changed so they are typically a mm off.

My goal is nothing short of Hagerty 1 level preparation.

Email is best: shaun@tru-6.com.

[718RSK]

Do you also offer the correct silver zinc? I have found the current silver zinc from many platers to be different from that found originally

[mobius911]

Just for clarification, are you trying to get a modern yellow zinc to mimic the original gold cad? Or are you saying these parts were done as yellow zinc originally? I thought they were cadmium plated.