Get your Chrome work done soon!

[Guest stude8]

It looks like the Fed's are coming down hard on Chrome, might be a good time to get your work into the que at your favorite shop while they can still do it. read the details at http://www.pfonline.com/articles/120401.html Stude8

[Dave@Moon]

According to the data provided the guy chroming our bumpers after 45 years in the chrome shop (under current allowed exposure) has a 35% chance at developing fatal lung cancer. That's pretty specific and <span style="font-style: italic">VERY</span> high. Those aren't numbers pulled out of a lower orifice either. OSHA's toxicity analysis is a solid process.

This looks bad!

[Guest Hal Davis (MODEL A HAL)]

If you really cared, Dave, you'd just leave them the way they are.

[Guest bkazmer]

This is not going after chrome per se - only Cr+6. There have been regulations on hexavalent chrome for a long time. We may be looking at trivalent chrome process in the future - don't know what it would cost compared to the current way.

[Twitch]

Someday soon we'll probably be shipping pieces to be chromed to Paraguay- home of Dr. Mengele and no laws about chemical pollution. Can't wait!

[Guest De Soto Frank]

Great !

We can't catch Osama or keep a lid on Iraq, but Uncle Sam will defend us against the nefarious plating industry.

I feel so much safer !

[Ron Green]

Maybe we should just allow the platers to buy pollution credits similar to the factories. That way they can keep producing instead of fixing the problem. Of course I am only kidding!

[Dave@Moon]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">If you really cared, Dave, you'd just leave them the way they are. </div></div>

You obviously haven't seen my bumpers!

[Dave@Moon]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">This is not going after chrome per se - only Cr+6. There have been regulations on hexavalent chrome for a long time. We may be looking at trivalent chrome process in the future - don't know what it would cost compared to the current way. </div></div>

The valency of the metal being plated is what allows it to adhere to the plating surface. I used to inspect a number of platers (who, by the way, often found out that the waste they'd been throwing out was actually a valuable ore and largely made/saved money by complying with solid waste environmental regs!--OSHA was another matter.), and I never came accross a trivalent process. You can be damn sure that nobody handles hexavalent chrome optionally.

A trivalent plating process has been developed (see: EPA Factsheet for trivalent chrome plating ). It's more expensive (of course), although with increased volume that will change. There is also a <span style="font-style: italic">very slight</span> but noticeable color change to the plated metal (exactly how--yellow/grey/brown--isn't specified but it is refered to as "darker"). This has been (supposedly) vastly improved of late and parts need to be placed side-by-side for the difference to be apparent.

If the PEL limits OHSA defines can't be met, we may have to live with <span style="font-style: italic">slightly</span> darker chrome which <span style="font-style: italic">may</span> be a little more expensive. At least we know we're not killing the guy who's selling it to us. This may become something like not being able to wrap steam car boilers in pure asbestos any more.

[Guest bkazmer]

The final surface is chromium in either case, not a +3 or +6 salt, so I would think it could be pretty close. Even if chrome plating does go down the tubes entirely there's always Nickel. Indium is used instead of chrome in some other metallizing.