I've always known the colour of that plating as yellow chromate, which has more like a 'yellowy chrome' look rather than gold. I believe this a hexavalent chromium compound & as such is now banned virtually worldwide.
I think that a lot of repro stuff these days is just too gold.
Dr Terry
Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant !! It's plant food !!
I agree with Terry that they would have been a hexavalent yellow chromate. Substrate was probably cadmium whereas these days you are likely to have a zinc substrate with trivalent chromate. They may use hex chromate in China which has superior corrosion resistance, however if they use cadmium substrate the goods are classed as hazardous and may be difficult or impossible to import.
You can still easily get cad plating done in Australia, and cad has superior corrosion resistance and other properties such as stick-slip.
You can produce a very close match to cad in appearance with zinc and trivalent chromate by controlling activation method and immersion time. It looks too yellow if you dip it for too long. Can also be too dull if you use HCl instead of nitric acid to activate, or if you dont start with a bright enough zinc substrate.
I think while choosing one you should also take care care of the whole mark, which is marked on only original gold items...Do don't forget to check this mark.
Hose clamps
Posted - 26/06/2012 : 6:15:37 PM
