Zinc plated ?? bulb sockets in 1938 Dodge Truck. Who does plati?

[Mika Jaakkola]

I guess I could have posted this to Dodge forum, but I think this a general question after all...

I have an old '38 Dodge Truck wiring harness with headlight bulb, park bulb, dash bulb sockets:

http://homepage.mac.com/mika.jaakkola/dodgewires/PhotoAlbum9.html

I guess (this is a guess) these sockets are zinc plated when new.

I recently bought a complete new wiring harness without sockets and I should install the old sockets to the new wiring harness.

But.. I don't want to install those lightly rusted and worn out-looking parts.

Does anyone know a company who does zinc plating(based on electrolysis) for this kind (only for few)of old parts?

[Johan Boltendal]

Hi, I would take these parts to the company that would do my chrome job and ask them to nickle plate these items,if

they will not do the zinc at the same place. Johan

[Mika Jaakkola]

Done that, but they said that their zinc-plating systems are out of order and they have no intentions to repair them at the moment. I would be willing to ship the parts to USA as well..

[Rusty_OToole]

If you can't get new ones why not give them 2 thin coats of rust proof aluminum spray paint? Have done this on old bulb sockets and it lasted for years.

[Mika Jaakkola]

but it's not original......

[Ivan Saxton]

Is it zinc, or is it tin? Zinc is generally applied to steel by dipping the cleaned (pickled) item into a bath of molten zinc. (galvanizing). Zinc does wet the surface of steel quite well, and this gives a coating without porosity, but may be a thicker layer than you might want unless you brush most of it off while it is still hot.

You used to be able to buy zinc stick from welding suppliers for rubbing onto welds on galvanised work to restore the rust protection. I have never used this, but the residual heat from arc welding is apparently enough to wet the surface.

I have instructions for tin plating in a digest of automotive engine reconditioning. This was used to build up pistons for slightly worn cylinder bores (though you would need to hone to remove taper as well as produce a suitable surface to seat in new rings. It was said that the most you needed to do to a Stutz which had done less than 300,000 miles was plate 6 thou of tin on the pistons).

There is nothing really nasty in the electrolyte mixture. You can scale down the proportions for bench-top scale to do it yourself. A bath for 6 to 8 pistons would have 12 gallons of water, 9 pounds of sodium stannate 2 1/2 ounces of sodium perborate, six ounces of sodium hydroxide, and half an ounce of "powdered resin or sodium oleate to protect the surface. Working temperature is 135-175F, anodes are tin, and you would get 6 volts from a battery charger using a rheostat. If it takes 15-30 minutes per 1 thou deposit thickness on piston skirts, it will take little time for the flash coating you would probably want. I would clean up first by glass bead blasting, which does not pit the surface.

I can get my son to scan and put up the full section if anyone needs it.

Ivan Saxton

[Rusty_OToole]

What's not original, paint? I assure you they applied paint to many parts of your truck when it was made.

If anyone takes a microscope and looks at your light sockets, and says "Aha! This is not original! The light sockets on a 1938 Dodge truck are supposed to be zinc plated not painted with silver paint!" You have my permission to kick them right square in the nuts.

[Rusty_OToole]

If you are serious about this I suggest you buy a plating kit and do it yourself.

These kits are not expensive and can be used for many different kinds of plating on all kinds of car parts, bicycle and motorcycle parts, and other plating jobs around the house.

Here is one of the leading suppliers, Caswell Plating. I have bought from them myself and so have my friends.

http://www.caswellplating.com/

Here is their zinc plating outfit

http://www.caswellplating.com/kits/zinc.htm

[Curti]

Superior plating in Minneapolis does zinc plating, but clear cadimum is what you really want, they do that too.

[MCHinson]

Sorry to hijack this thread but...

Rusty, I have been looking at the Caswell website for the past few days and debating doing small item plating as a small hobby related sideline business, as I will be retiring in about 2 years.

With your experience, do you have any advice on this subject?

[Rusty_OToole]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: MCHinson</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Sorry to hijack this thread but...

Rusty, I have been looking at the Caswell website for the past few days and debating doing small item plating as a small hobby related sideline business, as I will be retiring in about 2 years.

With your experience, do you have any advice on this subject? </div></div>

If you are the type of person that enjoys this kind of work I think it's a good idea.

It is something people will pay for but it does entail a lot of hand work.

You can also get into polishing stainless steel trim and rechroming. The biggest expense of chrome is the polishing not the plating. If you can polish, then copper plate the parts you can get them chromed by someone else.

I do not like the idea of doing chrome plating, the chemicals are too dangerous. Other types of plating are safer.

[MCHinson]

Thanks.

Since my father was a machinist, I have sort of always liked the idea of working with metal.

I was thinking of Cadmium initially and after looking at their website, I have been thinking of Cadmium and Zinc. My experience with my Model A tells me that there is a market for someone willing to do Cadmium plating of small parts at a reasonable price.

[dl456]

Mathew,

I have been using Caswell for the past three years. It is a relatively good system for the do-it-your selfer, but I would not recommend it for any type of venture.It is , however an excellent system for the type of problem referenced in the post.

Dennis

[MCHinson]

OK, Thanks. I'll do some more research....

[buellhall]

Rusty calm down... Someone check for a full moon!!! For what it's worth a couple months ago I stumbled upon a couple of web site's that may be of interest.

1) >donsbulbs.com< Out of California he is manufacturing headlight sockets with a remarkable degree of accuracy to adhere to many different socket configurations. Unfortunately not in my price range. I cleaned mine up made the usual three trips to the hardware store and my old sockets look and work like new.

2) >acpearson@chariot.net.au< Out of Australia... he has a couple suppliers in America, check web site for location near you. They produce a 6 volt Halogen bulb for these old style vintage sockets. I have installed some in my 39 Chrysler and the difference is remarkable, well worth the cost. No special wiring just plug into your existing sockets.

[Rusty_OToole]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: 365</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Rusty calm down... Someone check for a full moon!!! For what it's worth a couple months ago I stumbled upon a couple of web site's that may be of interest.

1) >donsbulbs.com< Out of California he is manufacturing headlight sockets with a remarkable degree of accuracy to adhere to many different socket configurations. Unfortunately not in my price range. I cleaned mine up made the usual three trips to the hardware store and my old sockets look and work like new.

2) >acpearson@chariot.net.au< Out of Australia... he has a couple suppliers in America, check web site for location near you. They produce a 6 volt Halogen bulb for these old style vintage sockets. I have installed some in my 39 Chrysler and the difference is remarkable, well worth the cost. No special wiring just plug into your existing sockets. </div></div>

You have to take some of my remarks with a sense of humor. I thought Mika might be kidding. On the other hand, people do get obsessed over their old cars sometimes.

I have had cars at shows, where some nit picker criticised some imaginary flaw. Then went over to his rusted out 1990 Lumina and drove home in a cloud of smoke. When some boob does criticise your car it is only natural you want to give them a swift kick.

To get back to Mika's problem. A can of spray paint from the hardware store will fix it. But if he wants to be all Martha Stewart about it, he should get the plating kit. Easier and cheaper than sending stuff out and no doubt he has lots and lots of things that need plating with all those old vehicles to restore.

[Rusty_OToole]

Also you are lucky to get half your stuff back from the platers.

[Mika Jaakkola]

Thanks alot Rusty and guys. I might go for do-it-yourself-kit. Not because I want to be annoying, just because I think it's the right way

And there's lot's of other stuff like bolts and nuts that will need replating. I dont want to install those rusty and dirty bolts back to car when it's repainted.

By the way, I think that glass bead blasting may be difficult to do on small parts like dash bulb sockets- is there anykind of chemical solution for taking rust out from small parts? like citric acid or something like that?

[Mika Jaakkola]

Thanks alot Rusty and guys. I might go for do-it-yourself-kit. Not because I want to be annoying, just because I think it's the right way

And there's lot's of other stuff like bolts and nuts that will need replating. I dont want to install those rusty and dirty bolts back to car when it's repainted.

By the way, I think that glass bead blasting may be difficult to do on small parts like dash bulb sockets- is there anykind of chemical solution for taking rust out from small parts? like citric acid or something like that?

[Ivan Saxton]

Electroplating kit and instructions should cover "pickling", which is acid cleaning prior to plating.

You can probably get small honourable economical oriental blasting cabinets, and it really is worth having such a facility if you do your own restoration. I still use one made years ago from a wooden box, which is not as good. The glass beads are really very gentle in that they do not erode the metal, but leave a fine bright matt finish. I believe you can get an even kinder grit, which is essentially pulverised walnut shells. You clean out the cabinet completely if you want to change grit. Aluminium oxide is very good for cleaning up parts for painting, and you can get different mesh sizes of grit according to how much etch you want.

Ivan Saxton

[Ivan Saxton]

Electroplating kit and instructions should cover "pickling", which is acid cleaning prior to plating.

You can probably get small honourable economical oriental blasting cabinets, and it really is worth having such a facility if you do your own restoration. I still use one made years ago from a wooden box, which is not as good. The glass beads are really very gentle in that they do not erode the metal, but leave a fine bright matt finish. I believe you can get an even kinder grit, which is essentially pulverised walnut shells. You clean out the cabinet completely if you want to change grit. Aluminium oxide is very good for cleaning up parts for painting, and you can get different mesh sizes of grit according to how much etch you want.

Ivan Saxton

[Rusty_OToole]

Do a web search for electrolytic cleaning or derusting. You can do it at home with a battery charger and a pail of water with some washing soda in it. I don't feel like going into all the harrowing details. There are several web sites with complete info.

[Rusty_OToole]

Do a web search for electrolytic cleaning or derusting. You can do it at home with a battery charger and a pail of water with some washing soda in it. I don't feel like going into all the harrowing details. There are several web sites with complete info.

[Restorer32]

Zinc/cad plating is very inexpensive to have done commercially. Last year we had a 50lb bucket full of misc pcs plated, maybe 100 pcs or more, for about $100. Any fair sized city should have a commercial zinc/cad plater. Check your yellow pages.

[Restorer32]

Zinc/cad plating is very inexpensive to have done commercially. Last year we had a 50lb bucket full of misc pcs plated, maybe 100 pcs or more, for about $100. Any fair sized city should have a commercial zinc/cad plater. Check your yellow pages.

[Guest martylum]

I just finished sending all the nuts and bolts for a 53 Buick restoration to my chrome plater who sends them off in larger batches to a cadmium plater. Cadmium is a much more durable finish than zinc and may very well have been used on your 38 dodge sockets.

The returned nuts and bolts and latches looked very good upon return. If you wish to go this route, send to Qual Krom 4775-A Iroqouis Ave. Erie, PA 16511. You might wish to send other items such as latches, etc as there is a minimum charge per order and just doing sockets will be expensive on a per piece basis.

Very few outfits do cadmium plating because of the toxicity of the chemicals but the U. s. military still requires cadmium because of the durability under adverse conditions.

I think a lot of hardware on cars up into the 50's was cad plated and have used aa a replate to give durable and correct looking parts for years. It really holds up nicely.

Martin Lum

[Guest martylum]

I just finished sending all the nuts and bolts for a 53 Buick restoration to my chrome plater who sends them off in larger batches to a cadmium plater. Cadmium is a much more durable finish than zinc and may very well have been used on your 38 dodge sockets.

The returned nuts and bolts and latches looked very good upon return. If you wish to go this route, send to Qual Krom 4775-A Iroqouis Ave. Erie, PA 16511. You might wish to send other items such as latches, etc as there is a minimum charge per order and just doing sockets will be expensive on a per piece basis.

Very few outfits do cadmium plating because of the toxicity of the chemicals but the U. s. military still requires cadmium because of the durability under adverse conditions.

I think a lot of hardware on cars up into the 50's was cad plated and have used aa a replate to give durable and correct looking parts for years. It really holds up nicely.

Martin Lum

[Guest Old School Plating]

Hi,  We at Old School Plating offer OEM plating standards from yester-year.

 

Cyanide Cadmium

Chromates, Gold, Black, Clear

Zinc Black Phosphate

Black Oxide

Zinc Plating

Re-surfacing & Baking

 

www.oldschoolplating.com