Chrome and satin chrome fasteners.....

I have 2-3 pounds oforiginal Norton nuts, bolts, studs & misc. Give me a list of what you need & I'll see what I have. Just finished the lathe recently & hope to start making a lot of my own stuff with the Norton round headed bolts. I have used stainless steel hardware from Norvil & Molnar Manx & bead blasted it for a satin chrome look & have polished the stainless if I need a chrome look. Last year I had a few used items satin chrome plated with goodsuccess, but I did my own prep work, made a big difference.

Skip

I have found some suppliers will take standard hardware & plate it, as you have found out the hard way, some of the dimensions need to be made undersize so that after plating, you end up at the correct dimensions, rather than oversize.

Skip

Custom Fasteners advertise some satin chrome fasteners. I haven't dealt with that firm for over 20 years, but back then they were OK. This company don't seem to supply real B.S.W. fasteners any more - they substitute U.N.C. so owners can bodge their repairs and not use the correct spanner size.

http://www.custom-fasteners.co.uk/

Colin.

With the price of chrome being what it is I doubt that any plater will put more than a couple of thou on- definitely not enough to cause a lack of fit. Spanners are not that tight fitting! Nuts & bolts were always made the same size whether they were zinc or chrome plated. It would have been ridiculously costly to make two sets for every size. The only type of bolts that might have problems fitting stndard clearance threads & holes could be hot-dipped galvanised and you aren't likely to find them on bikes! They are generally used in construction and other heavy equipment.

Zinc plate is not what is truly called "galvanised", although many people tend to think the terms are synonymous. "Galv" should be hot-dipped into a pool of molten zinc, whereas zinc-plate is done electrolytically and deposits are MUCH thinner.

Cheers, Lionel

I suppose you are correct Lionel, I was remembering in the past when I worked as a machinist & we always had to make our partsundersizedif they were to be plated, including threaded items. If it was decorative chrome, I was told it was first plated with copper, then nickel, then chrome. I dont remember the total thickness of the plating process. I assume the Norton nuts & bolts were not held to a class 3a, or 3b fit like precision parts, probably class 1, or 2 ?

I would think if a bolts threads were made to the high side of the tolerance & the nuts were made to the low side, there might be some interference when fit also.

And of course sadly, some vendors dont make items the way they should. Thats why I recently bought a lathe

Skip

Yes Eugene, "proper" chrome-plate should always be chrome on copper on nickel but the total thickness is in scores of microns rather than several thou. Only high stressed fixings like the crankshaft and big ends would have tolerances measured in fractions of a thou. I'll let you know how it goes when I start my own plating! I have the equipment but not the time at present!

Cheers, Lionel

Good luck with that Lionel !!! Sounds like fun!

Skip Brolund

Older Norton fasteners could be a little erratic. I had no trouble incorporating Dull-chromed screws from Ken McIntosh in my 1939 rebuild, where the originals were missing or damaged. However, on a number of the original fittings, the open ends of my nice new Gedore combination spanners will only fit on one pair of flats.

The mudguard etc. fittings, nice as they are to look at, are distinctly low tensile and appear pretty much hand made. I can imagine that the nuts were manufactured at maximum tolerance to ensure a fit.

Hello all Nookys Nuts www.nookysnuts.co.uk or find him on Ebay .co.uk He has some very good Nickel plated nuts and Bolts And Washers & Allen Key Screws ,Give him a try you find He has some good stuff, yours AJD

I stand to be corrected on this, but, hasn't nickel plating been banned (under "Heath & safety" regs)? John.

Previously wrote:

I stand to be corrected on this, but, hasn't nickel plating been banned (under "Heath & safety" regs)? John.

Hello Has Nickel plating been band Well NO or you would Not be-able To get you chroming done As Nickel is put on first before it goes it to the chroming bath , Nickel plating was used before Chroming came out , and was used on many early Norton Motorcycles Bright work, copper its only good if its used on Marsak like Norton tank Badges , if its used on steel it eats into the steel , its is way you get pitting on chromed bumper and the like, Quality Chrome Dose not use Copper on steel parts , But it does use Nickel It stays in the nickel bath the longest put to 4 hours in some cases , then it polished up the buffed down for the Chroming bath where it will stay for 2 to 3 hours depending on the parts at the time, So give Karl Quality Chrome a ring and find out , he will tell you what you need too know, see www.qualitychrome.co.uk Yours AJD

In the county where I live, the EPA (environmentalprotection agency) no longer allows chrome platingbusinesses, but the next county over does. Although in our county we are allowed to have all other forms of plating including nickel, with the other exception of cadmium. My local plater has to send all his cad. plate work to Mexico, where they have little or noenvironmentalregulations.

Skip Brolund