PLATING ALUMINIUM

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 44, 20 August 1938, Page 28

PLATING ALUMINIUM

For some 30 years experts have been searching for a practical, fast, and inexpensive method of plating aluminium with nickel, copper or chromium, but all efforts failed on account of the persistent film of oxygen which forms on the surface of aluminium. This disability, it is reported, has at last been overcome by W. J. Travers, an American chemist. His patent covers a process that, it is stated, will enable aluminium articles to be treated in volume in a normal manner by ordinary plating etablishments. The" article to be plated is subjected to a treatment that creates an anodic oxide film which leaves the aluminium surface hard and resistent. The article is then placed in an alkaline bath which modifies the film and prepares the surface for plating by the ordinary process, using the same element and the same solutions.

Plating of aluminium would play an important part in the' automobile industry. Pistons, etc., could be a surface that would almost defy wear Tests of long duration have proved that the expansion and contraction of the plated system under working contions does not adversely affect the plating, nor does extreme cold or heat.

When in a hurry remember the famous comedian's remark: "Many motorists drive as if they afraid of being late for their accident." There are plenty besides oneself about the highways and the highways them{selves are not without traps for the j unwary.