Cleaning chrome on a DA

[scubanut]

I have a DA Aquamaster and the chrome is on the dull side. Does anyone have a suggestion on how to make the chrome bright and shine. I have tried a few different things but no luck yet.

[1969ivan1]

Have you tried one of the chrome polishes that are sold in motorcycle stores?

[scubanut]

Thanks for the suggestion, I will give that a try

[1969ivan1]

Anytime Fred!!!

[treasureman]

The softest chrome polish is made by Turtle wax. It does not leave any tell tale scratches and is perhaps the least abrasvie of the polishes. About 5 bux at the local car wash store.

I have found the chrome on DA not to be of that high a quality. recently my colleague who is chroming my other DA boxes tell me that chrome does not flow into recesses. example of the box is held by a hook when chromes, the plating will naturally go to the high spots and less to the lower or underside areas. Anyone who ever would make boxes out of stainless would have a nice niche market

[duckbill]

I just recently cleaned and polished my DA and DW using Napa "Blue Max" Chrome Cleaner and Polish. Worked fine for me- even cleaned off the vedigris nicely as well. Of course, the scratches and dings are there to stay.
I was a plater for several years. The metal which really builds up and creates the "shine" when plating decorative chrome is nickel. The chrome is just a "flash" electroplate used to create a surface which will not tarnish (nickel will tarnish if left as the surface metal). It is true that the plating will have a very hard time throwing into recesses and will tend to build up at the extremeties, but that is why the part being plated is usually rotated from one end to the other during the nickel plating process (electrical continuity cannot be broken while receiving the chrome flash). Also, any good chrome plater will build and use "robbers" around the high spots and extremeties. In the simplest form, these can be wires attached electrically to the part, and surrounding, but not touching, the part. The robber then will take the build-up of plating and keep the edges of the plated part from building up or "burning". Burning causes a frosted appearance on the edges. Make sure your plater takes the time to devise a robber for your parts.
By the way, electroplating causes hydrogen-embrittlement to the base metal. After plating, the part must be baked in order to drive out the excess hydrogen. I don't remember the proper temperature or time (several hours) involved, but your plater should. I also cannot recall if embrittlement affects non-ferrous metals, or just ferrous. I would ask the plater to bake any parts he plates for me- if applicable. I bring this up because I have recently had a problem with seemingly brittle plated brass parts, and I suspect hydrogen-embrittlement may be the cause.

[treasureman]

Some excellent tips and tricks from someone who been ther done it. This kind of expertise should be typed out, and put into a pdf file so the community (vintage divers) can download them. It would appear we have a wealth of esxperience online in the forum

who new about hydrogen embrittlement.. i certainly did not, and when i go see my plater before he does my Da boxes, i will ask about robbers and cooking the product after it is done

[scubanut]

Thanks guys for the helpful information, I really appreciate it very much.

[duckbill]

Hey, treasureman, nice to meet you.
Just so you know, the term to use when talking to your plater is "baking". Again though, I was an electroplater 20 years ago and I don't recall if hydrogen can be baked out of brass or not. Regulator boxes are not things that have to do much flexing, so the benefits of baking could be debated. But, there are examples of boxes out there with cracks at the rim where they join together. Could baking have eliminated that problem? Would baking be of benefit to a newly plated regulator which may be subject to repeated opening and retightening after each dive for cleaning, rather than once per year? Who's to say...but it certainly would'nt hurt to have them baked. Ask them if baking applies to brass, and if they know of any downside to performing the operation (other than an extra fee, perhaps).
Oh, and another benefit of using robbers is that they allow the electrical current to be raised during plating, which will help the plating to throw into those elusive low spots.

[duckbill]

Correction! As you were. I did some research to refresh my memory concerning baking to relieve hydrogen embrittlement after electroplating. Baking is only beneficial when the plated base metal is HARDENED STEEL. Sorry about the misinformation. As I said before, I was'nt sure if brass was affected by embrittlement. Now we know.