Thu Aug 25, 2005 12:55 pm
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.